I'm back

Wow, time flies!  Need I say that life has been busy with the holidays, three kids, going back to work, and a husband in fellowship working 80+ hours a week?  Before Laney, I used to stay up late occasionally after the kids went to bed to blog.  Now, with Laney, she goes to bed so late and sleeps so erratically, that as soon as she is down for the night, I race to bed with the hope that I will get to close my eyes before she is up again.  Her latest trick is to be up from 3am to 5am.  All week, we have done battle during those wee hours of the morning.  Laney will wake up, nurse, and fall back asleep, but the second I lay her down in her crib, she starts wailing.  I pick her up, she falls asleep, I lay her down, and she cries.  She's driving me crazy!! But somehow that sweet smile and ready laugh wins me back over at the break of day.  As I said, I am back to work now, but just two days a week.  On my days off, I get to sleep in a little bit.  Laney will usually sleep until 8 or 9am, after I finally get her back to bed.  Being so tired this past week, I have been convincing the big kids we should snuggle in bed for a while when they get up before we start our day. 

this is my "sleeping in" (David, by this time, is long gone at work)

While I have not been posting lately, I have written tons of blog entries in my head.  Hopefully I can get some of them caught up soon.  I was just going through some pictures and I can hardly believe how much Laney has grown up already!  I want to get some of the cute baby pictures up before she is all grown up!!

So to totally skip over Thanksgiving and Christmas, I was baking with William last week.  He told me he would be the mixer and I could be the pourer.  We made blueberry muffins from this recipe, which I have to say were delicious!

Look at this big kid! No longer a toddler, he seems to have grown up so much recently.

At lunch that day we played a new game.  We had gotten at pack of cards from Chick-fil-a called "Games to play at dinner." It contains cards that each have a different game to play while sitting down such as "guess what is in my hand" or "Mrs. Paghetti's Spaghetti." I actually really enjoyed the games and so did the kids.  Some were a little hard to play with a two year old and a five year old (like naming animals with each letter of the alphabet).  However, we found many that we could all play pretty well. One game was called "Family Awards." In this game, you think of an award to give to each name in the family.  For example, I started and gave myself the award "Best at folding laundry" and gave Eliana the award "Best at making Laney smile." After those examples, Eliana really ran with things and came up with the following awards for her family members. 

Daddy - Best at taking care of patients
Will - Best at eating blueberries the fastest
Laney - Best at laughing at Eliana
Grandma Flanigan - Best at babysitting
Grandpa Flanigan - Best at making noise
Grandma Bond - Best at getting stuff and helping
Grandpa Bond - Best at taking naps
Uncle Ray - Best at fixing stuff
Aunt Rhonda - Best at driving
Uncle Roger - Best at taking care of Aunt Hannah
Aunt Hannah - Best at waiting on Uncle Roger

(at this point, all of the awards became best at taking care of so and so, so I quit the game).  I was cracking up with this game.  She came up with some great awards (Grandpa Bond being one of my favorites).  Way to go Chick-fil-a.  This was one kids meal toy that even I liked!

Making Laney smile

  

Rosalie's baptism

Last month the kids and I took a trip to South Bend for my niece Rosalie's baptism.  David was on clinic call, so he had to work and could not leave the city.  We actually had a very uneventful four hour drive to South Bend, with Laney sleeping the entire way.  I was really worried about the drive, but it turned out to not be that bad.  God must have taken pity on me because Laney had stayed up until 3am the night before (aka the morning of...) our trip!  Saturday evening was spent with family, then Sunday was the actual baptism. 

Rebecca and Ben with their daughter Rosalie

That's the gown that I was baptized in!  As were all of the girls in my family, including Eliana.

Rosalie with her Godparents.

Look at this crazy group!  Everyone on my side of the family except for David.  Poor guy, he always misses out on the fun because of work!  Mike, Abby's husband, suggested that we get a cardboard cutout of David to bring with us to such events so that he can be in the pictures.  Ha!

Welcome to the church little one!

My grandma holding Laney with Ben's grandma (I think??) holding Rosie.  Grandma's are good for putting babies to sleep!  And Eliana insisted on hopping in the picture and showing off her gift she had gotten that day.

Magdalena and Rosalie.  These cousins are just 19 days apart! Laney was 5 1/2 weeks old and Rosie was just over 8 weeks old.  While they are fairly close in weight, Rosie is much longer than Laney!

OSU attack

Last week there was an attack on OSU's campus.  Basically, a man drove his car into a crowd of people, and when the car became disabled, he jumped out and started slashing people with a knife.  A police officer was near by and quickly ended the situation.  In total, 11 people were taken to the hospital with non-fatal injuries.  However, for several hours there was a lot of confusion about what was going on and the media reported that there was a shooter on campus.  David works in the medical center which is located on OSU's campus, so I was very worried.  When I heard about the shooter, I immediately texted David to make sure he was ok.  He quickly texted back that he was fine, and no where near what was going on.  Then I found out that several schools in our neighborhood, including Eliana's preschool, were on lockdown.  Our neighborhood is fairly close to OSU, so the schools closest to the major roads leading out of OSU's campus decided to be as precautions as possible.  Of course, it turns out that wasn't necessary and the children were never in any real danger.  But it is still so scary to think the school might need to do that.  At pickup from preschool, all of the doors were locked and adults were being let in one by one after checking with the preschool director.  While the children had no idea that anything unusual was going on, the adults were all very somber.  I admit I shed a few tears in the car just thinking about the possibility of something happening to David or Eliana. 

Praise the Lord, we are all safe and no one was ever in any danger.  But it makes my heart ache to think such violence is in the world and it could come so close to my family.  How much we take for granted every day.  This event has once again reminded me that my husband and my children are not my own.  They belong to Christ.  While we live in a very, very safe neighborhood, and I keep a close eye on the kids at home and when we are out and about, I cannot control everything that happens around them.  As much as I want to, I cannot protect them from everything.  I have to entrust them to God.  Nothing has made me lean so much on God as becoming a mother.

I pray for those injured during this terrible act of violence, I pray for the family of the attacker, and I pray for the safety of my family.  I sure am hugging my kids close these days.

Photography trials

Pictures can be deceiving.  Sometimes I take 20 photos of my kids crying before I can finally get a good one where they look happy.  But you wouldn't know that based on what I post in the blog.  So here's an example of what our pictures really look like most of the time.

Screaming during tummy time.  This was from a couple of weeks ago.  She is much better at tummy time now and much happier.

Really not enjoying this photo session

Making a face at me

What are you doing Mom? She looks very bulky in this picture.

Twenty pictures later, I finally get a decent shot:

There's my beautiful girl!  Still not smiling but I'll take it.

Halloween 2016

This year for Halloween, after much consideration, Eliana was a cat ... again (3rd year in a row).  At first she had said she wanted to be a dog (which I was excited for the change).  Then a mommy dog.  Then a rainbow kitty.  Finally she settled on a pink kitty with a purple belly and purple ears.  Her outfit was pretty easy to make.  I just used a pink sweatsuit as a base, then with hot glue added purple "fur" along the bottom of the pants and sleeves, a purple fur tail, foam ears with purple fur, and a big purple belly (attached with velcro so the zipper still worked on the jacket). 

As for William, he decided to be a dog like Eliana, except he stuck with it even after Eliana switched to a cat.  He was a yellow dog - a combination of Spot the dog and T-bone, a dog from Clifford. At the last minute, William told me he wanted to be a pumpkin, which is what he was last year, but I wouldn't let him.  I had worked to hard on his costume.  I wanted to do an outfit like Eliana's - use a yellow sweatsuit as a base and just add spots and a tail, but I could not find a solid yellow outfit.  So I ended up just sewing one myself, using velcro to fasten it in the back.  I wish I had taken a picture of William from the back (David was actually in charge of pictures Halloween night because I was nursing Laney, so I blame him).  I added three spots and a tail with hot glue.  It was so cute!

Magdalena was Snow White.  Her costume was a gift from her Aunt Hannah, which was adorable.  She attempted to trick-or-treat with us, but after half of a block in the stroller, she started crying, so I carried her the rest of the way.  She was wrapped up in a blanket in my arms so no one could see her costume any more.  That's ok though, she didn't need any candy anyway. 

To celebrate Halloween, we dressed up at my sister Rebecca's apartment with all of the little cousins the Saturday before Halloween.  The kids just played in their costumes for a bit and posed for pictures.  Trying to get six kids all 4 years old and under to pose for a picture is ridiculous! (I must has had the wrong setting on my camera as everyone is a little blue.)

I couldn't find William's ears.  And Laney didn't really want to participate.

Trying to get everyone arranged.  Hannah the monkey also wasn't so sure about participating.

Oops, there goes the monkey

And there goes Claire the lion... Shortly after this William tried to get up and dump Rosie the caterpillar on the grass.

We did slightly better when we added in the grown ups.

Flanigan Halloween 2016

For Trick-or-Treating on Halloween night, we went with our friends Adele and Hannah again.  Apparently while I was feeding Laney, a group picture was attempted but it was also a failure with 6 kids running in all different directions.   Eliana, William, Adele, and Hannah all had a blast running from house to house.  William was so adorable with his determined little strut up to each door, his little tail wagging behind him.  He definitely like it better this year than last.  I think I like Halloween almost as much as the kids just because I find them so adorable in their costumes.  I hope they never grow up and want to be scary things for Halloween.  Kitties and doggies are the best.

My little doggie - this time with his ears

cutie!

Best picture of Eliana from the night

William riding with Hannah who was also Snow White!

After trick-or-treating, enjoying their treats. This was the best picture of the two of them from the whole night.

And the most adorable part of Halloween!

William's 2nd Birthday

Poor Will, the forgotten middle child.  I never got around to posting about his 2nd birthday way back in July, which has been on my list of things to write about for months now.  Better late than never...

To celebrate William's birthday, David's parents and brother came to our house along with my brother Michael, Melissa, and their daughter Claire.  We had cake and ice cream (Will doesn't actually like cake - just the icing on top), played outside in the sandbox, and checked out his new toy truck and soccer goal.  I didn't get many pictures because, like I mentioned above, William is the forgotten middle child.  :)

Singing happy birthday

Blowing out the candles.  Eliana wanted to see if he needed help.

Enjoying some birthday cake!

Hanging with his best friend Claire.  She is the closest in age to him of his cousins, and they play together really well.

William was reading her a book.

At his two year check up, William was 34.5in tall and 28lbs.  I will have to look that up for the percentiles.  He talks a lot for his age!  He says full sentences, which I always find so cute and surprising with his little baby voice.  He can recognize the letter W and knows that is his special letter.  He knows most of his colors and Eliana says his favorite color is green.  He likes riding his "moto" (big wheel tricycle), playing with balls, hitting things with sticks, and playing with dinosaurs.  He understands a lot of Spanish but at this point he mostly talks in English.  Although a few words still hang on - ardilla for squirrel and oso for bear.  He loves watching the garbage men take away the trash and has told me that he wants to be a garbage man when he grows up.  He also likes to walk around carrying books above his head, saying he is a priest, and offering you the "Body of Christ."  So who knows, maybe he will be a garbage truck driving priest.  His favorite food is pizza.  And he wants to go to preschool so bad.  He has his own little backpack that he fills with dinosaurs and says he is going to "pretend preschool."  Sometimes he is so sweet - giving kisses and hugs, while other times he is really aggressive - he loves to pull Eliana's hair.  His latest thing is to give "head bumps" which is like a fist bump, except with your head. 

Here is my latest funny William story:

Eliana was talking about getting a pet, and I said, "If you could have any pet, what would it be?"  Eliana said, "A cat!"
"And what about you, William?" I asked.
"A Dinosaur!" he replied.

I sure love my sweet little boy!

What our days are like

We have been very busy lately!  Every weekend we have been traveling out of state - first to my niece's baptism, then to my brother-in-law's wedding, and this weekend to my parents' anniversary party.  So throw in a fussy baby and I haven't had much time to blog.  I actually started this post a few weeks ago but never finished.  So here goes:

Some of our escapades the past few weeks.

On a wet, dreary day, Eliana asked to go outside to jump in the puddles.  I dressed her and William up in their rain coats and boots, and set them outside.  They quickly found the little pool that I had not put away from this summer and started jumping in it.  They were drenched by the time they came inside!  However, Laney and I stayed warm and dry watching from the doorway.

Eliana got a new pair of purple slippers that she has been wearing all the time!  She loves to wear them in bed while she is sleeping.  Silly girl.

Tummy time with big brother.  I told William he should show Laney his trucks while she does tummy time to make her happy.  He brought over so many cars!  He leans over her and says, "Waney, you having fun on the floor?  Good!"

She obviously is very interested in his toys.

Activities while the baby is sleeping: William got to play with shaving cream.  This was a hit!  He drew several pictures or had me draw some like this dog.  After a little bit, we added a dinosaur to play in the shaving cream, which William really liked.  Then he had fun giving the dinosaur a bath in the sink to clean up.  Great indoor activity.  I cover the table in plastic which makes for easy clean up.

We also practiced writing the letter "W"

Playing with playdough