Broughton Hike Four

Last but not least, I'll share Max's adventures from our recent hike. After hanging out with me and Laini while the disc golf got rolling,

he was anxious for a turn with the grasshopper that Bella had caught.

She passed it on gladly, and he giggled as it tickled his hand.

He spent some time pointing out these fun mushrooms that we found. They were all over the place, and I'm still trying to find my field guide to ID them, as I can't find a website that's extensive enough to help out.

But the most fun was had in the creek. While the rest of us were salamander searching, he was having a blast tromping, sitting and splashing in the water.

The it was on to filling up his Frisbee with water.

And after that, BeeBee got to join in the fun.

Mama: "Max, are you dunking your BeeBee?!"

Max: "Yeah! Fine BeeBee wet, Mama!"

There is never a dull moment with Maxwell around.

Summer Boy

Dinner on the deck on a blanket, multiple boo-boos from one day, grass-stained feet...

Can you say "summer?"

I desparately want to sit and write a meaningful blog post. My mind is full of things I want to say, topics I want to explore, pictures I want to share. But the pictures I want to share are the most important right now, as there seems to be no time to deal with the other things. No time for the composition of meaninful words and topics. I'm lucky to be able to have these few minutes to get a few pictures up here to share. And then I will feel I have accomplished something other than nursing and half-completed household chores. Ugh, and as I'm sorting through pictures I realize that if I put them all up to share, then I'm shooting a few good posts in the foot because there are stories behind them to be shared, also... So here are a few pictures that require little words and stand on their own.

Helena had her first outings this weekend - Saturday to the store for our weekly shopping, Sunday to church and then for a walk at the biking trail later in the afternoon. Ah, that's one that I want to share the story of... It was glorious - just what I needed. But for now, here she is, all bundled in the earflap hat that I knit her and her cozy warm "jacket" hand-sewn by my dear friend Sarah 6 years ago for Bella. Awwwww...


Go ahead, let all of the AWWWWS out. We all know how absolutely sweet she is, especially in her pink carseat that matches her sister's.

Oh, and here is what she does while she's awake and in the wrap, which I think is absolutely adorable. As long as those eyes are open, she has her head back, looking around at everything. Speaking of looking at everything, ignore the table piled with dishes from lunch time...
Here she is in pink. Right now it's the only pink outfit she has, bought by her Nanny the day after she was born. The rest of our nicely sorted and labelled bags of girly clothes are still in our storage unit. I suppose we'll get around to getting them out while she can still fit into them.


Here's Papa with a lap full of offspring. Gotta' love that.


And here's how Max spent the morning. It's Super BiBi!!! He flies around the house, whooshing everywhere he goes, creating havoc. Wait, aren't super heroes supposed to save people, you ask? Well, not 2-year-old super heroes. Nope, they are creators of chaos, pure chaos.







For those who don't know BiBi, there are three of them (originals), and they go everywhere we go, especially to bed. And if they are found after being misplaced and/or forgotten for a time, they are happily shoved in Max's mouth, and you hear a muffled yet clearly intense "ERRRRR."

Okay, now I have finished a post. Feels good. Back to the nursing and half-finished chores...

Back to Life, Back to Reality...

(You're welcome for that song now being firmly lodged in your brain...)

Oh so much has happened around here as of late, I don't even know where to begin. Adam is switching jobs (just had his first day with the new one today), contemplating a second one, and I have been struggling to keep up with all things with my all-day-morning-sickness and fatigue. Yup, if you don't already know, our Fourth Shining Star will arrive sometime mid-February - once you get to four, you tell one or two people and then hope it eventually filters around to the rest before the baby arrives. What this has all meant is major adjustments. First of all, we're not used to having Adam around, and he's not used to being around. As sad as it is, his abcense has become our norm. Therefore, his in-between-jobs couple of weeks have been a little crazy. The kids have been hanging on him every second they are awake. Bella and Kane are vying for his attention, with talk being the weapon of choice for Bella, rough-housing for Kane. Max on the other hand screams like a panther every time Adam dares to set him down. For some reason, Papa says he can't hold him all day long, and Max just can't understand WHY :-).

For me, Adam being around has meant collaboration on family life, and I am nice and settled in my way being the way. Our parenting styles have clashed a bit here and there, that's for sure. Then there's the whole meals issue - NOT used to having to think of him when I cook, or think of having meals prepared, because he hasn't been around for meals but one day a week for the last year and a half. The kids and I generally fly by the seat of our pants when it comes to food and when to have it. Not that it works well for us, it is just where we've ended up. So meal planning is something we're working on. Another thing that needs some improvement on my part is being able to take care of the house with him around. It's so far out of my frame of normal for him to be here, I feel like we are all on vacation and shouldn't have to do anything. I have just wanted to spend the time hiking, playing, swimming, gardening, putt-putting, etc, etc.... Which, along with the "morning" sickness, definitely adds to the dissaster that the kitchen is in right now. Sigh...

In it all, I have missed my posting. I have hundreds of pictures on the camera that haven't even made it to the computer yet. There's still no room for them, so I don't even try. I've been ordering prints, puting on to disc, and deleting from the computer, and it's making a dent. But it is still a work in progress. Maybe that can be finished during tomorrow's rainy day. I need to get some recent pictures on here of my current, photographable three! The best I could find were these:

My Bella, nearly 6, before the recent hair cut and second lost tooth. Boy is it hard to get an un-hammed-up picture of her... She is just the biggest thing ever now. She spent 6 whole days at Nan and Pap's house for VBS, and only had one night of being homesick and needing Mama. She's reading at a third grade level now and spends all her free time doing just that. I love her love of reading. She has also been insistent on me enterring her into America's Got Talent, but says she would be too nervous to try singing a song with Pap's band first.

My Kaney, who has turned 4 in my blogger-abcense and also spent his first near-week with Nan and Pap. No phone calls home because of missing Mama there - just calls to tell me how much fun he was having and how many fish he caught on his first fishing trip. And he IS 4, meaning few pictures are snapped without a goofy face to go with them. My big stuff has decided to go to sleep in his own bed now - happened while sister was away - stays there most of the night now, and will actually go back to sleep in his bed if I'm in Max's bed at the time. Amazing...

My Maxwell, little mister big stuff. I can't get enough of who this kid is turning into. He is now so long, and thinning out, and just looks like such a big kid. He has his own wonderful words for many things - "oof" for nurse, howled like a wolf-pup now, with his head thrown back and his lips puckered up, "wavuv" for motorcycle, "woolamella" for watermelon, even though water is still just "wa"... I love his progression in to boyhood. He immitates any sound he hears - he does a super red-shouldered hawk - and is always pushing the limits of everything. His new name is Naked Wonder, because he will NOT leave his diaper on.

Life is fun around here, even though hectic. Hopefully our reality will become a little more of what we want now instead of what we have grown used to. Until then, who knows how often I'll get to this. But I'm glad it is here when I have the time...

Old pics

I have been continually sorting through pictures from the last year, deleting what I don't plan on printing (yes, it's been a year since I ordered prints - gasp and sigh) or ones that I took just for a blog post. I have to widdle away at them until my computer has room to edit all my new pictures. I have found many a picture that was meant for this blog, and thought I would, here and there, share with you some old stories from the last year. These will be short snippets of a blog post, but what's wrong with that, right? I need to be able to do that more often - get my creative release, share with you, and NOT make it an hour long process. So, as I head to bed, here are pictures of my Max from this last January, sorting and playing with my old MAX2 water-soluble oil paints. I couldn't pass up that photo op...

And ending that evening covered in spaghetti, which was, and still is, a norm for him. Because spaghetti is nearly as fun to play with as it is yummy to eat. Oh, and to share a tip with you, I came up with the idea of adding mashed avacado to my spaghetti sauce awhile back, and now just can't imagine it without. It makes it thick, creamy and oh-so-tasty, not to mention adding those wonderful brain-important fats. Yum. Try it sometime. You might be surprised...

Slow Day

Today has been a slow day. Not a planned slow day, but a forced slow day. And sometimes those forced slow days are exactly what we need, even if we don't want to admit it. Last night I came down with a healthy case of mastitis - a breast infection for those non-breastfeeding folk who may read this. Nasty things, breast infections. Fever, aches, shivers, flu-like symptoms along with swelling, redness and pain at the site of the infection. And all of this after one of those off-days that I have talked about before - this one including, but not limited to, dinner that I had worked on all day burning. But sometimes an infection is our body's way of telling us to slow down. I have been working overtime lately with this year's garden. I'm expanding it about three fold, which means tons of digging, planting, planning... I do get a lot of help from my little digger, though.

He earned his own little-man sized shovel after working so hard with this regular one. I do love this springtime activity. Planting rows of seeds in peat.

Anticipating, watching, until that first little sprout raises its frail self out of the soil and toward the sun.

Watching my little cucumbers turn from this, just days after they sprouted...

to this, just 9 days later (pardon the flashiness of these pictures - I despise flash, but wanted you to see how they have grown!).

Look at their little cucumber leaves popping out between their sproutling ones. My babies are growing up...

But as much as I love all the work that goes into my gardening, I have been a little obsessive about it. So even though I really wanted to be out there digging today, putting my peas, strawberry spinach, and the rest of my onions in the ground, I couldn't. And I think that's just what I needed.

Today, then, was spent hanging out inside, reading library books, watching a big truck and a cat documentary, and setting Maxwell up with his new bed. He is making an early move into the mattress-on-the-floor stage, just like his brother did. When Kane was about 18 months, I tore down his crib one afternoon in a fit of frustration, after my third attempt at getting him to sleep only to have him pop up the second I tried to lie him down in his crib. After I got the crib torn apart, I put the crib mattress on the floor, laid down beside him, and nursed him right to sleep. Max is to the same point. If I put him in his crib, he wakes up every half hour to an hour. He has been in his new bed for two hours now, happily sleeping away on a double mattress on the floor. We spent some time this evening, with the soft light pouring through the window, sitting on the edge of his bed looking for birds. Looking for birds is his favorite past-time, and once he sees one, he doesn't let it out of his sight. My big boy, sitting on his bed watching for birds out his window. Sticking his sweet little toes up on the unpainted sill, telling me all about the "BIR!" that he saw - his first blue jay. Is it a little soon to start his birding Life List? And while he slumbers on his new bed, and his brother and sister do the same on Bella's bed, having fallen asleep to Max Lucado's wonderful book You Are Special on CD (I love the library!), I am going to do a little bit of knitting while relaxing in my bed with a cup of Echinacea tea and a hot compress on my nursey. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel well enough to plant the peas, onions, and strawberry spinach. Only a good night's sleep will tell me if this infection is going to budge yet. Happy April Fool's day - I've never been any good at the fooling thing. I always feel too bad for fooling someone, because I don't like to get fooled :-). Hope your April is full of SPRING!!!

The Beauty of Color: Episode I

I was in an interesting place the other day, where I knew the floors needed scrubbed badly, but I just didn't feel the urgent need to get it done. So I fixed that by saying, "Hey, guys, would you like to do some body/feet painting before bath tonight?" I figured, with paint all over the floor, I would have to scrub it well. And the way I see it, if I have to clean it, I might as well give myself the joy of being able to really see the reward to my job well done.

For Maxwell, this was his first time digging in to the painting scene, but you would have never known it. He has watched his brother and sister, and from the minute I set everything out on the counter he was stretching to get his hands on a brush, yelling and bouncing up and down. Once I got him stripped down and into a disposable diaper, the party was on. We started with left over face paints, which were slightly dried out from last painting day, so I dipped the brush in the paint for him, told him to paint his tummy, and he immediately did just that.
He had just as much fun playing with the paints on the brush as he did painting himself.


We had music on (Christmas songs, thanks to Bella), and things got a little wild for a bit with dancing and singing.

Then he decided to try his hand on another canvas - his brothers tummy!

Next I rolled out the white wrapping paper for some feet painting, but Max thought he needed more color on himself, so the acrylics went on the tummy and hands as well. He got really excited at one point, squealing and shaking his paint-saturated hands.

We used some nice bright colors, but in the end everything ends up one color anyhow. Hard to believe it starts with these colors and ends up lime green all over the paper...

Maxwell did finally decide to put a little on the paper.

As you can see, he ended up mostly brown at the end of it all.
It took one good muddy-water rinse before they could all be bathed.

Apparently Max was really thirsty, because he was trying to scoop the water into his mouth with his hands, then gave up on that to try this. He had never attempted this before.

You would think that washable face paints would wash off, but maybe the super-concentration from them drying out some made that pigment a little more resilient than the last time we used them. Max was covered in lovely pastel patterns for the following day. I think I'll just stick to my acrylics from now on.
There are so many more wonderful pictures, some of which I will share with you in Episode II, featuring Bella and Kane. There were just too many to include here. But if you are interested in seeing them all, you can hop on over to my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/naturemama/. I would love to have you, and I am downloading the images as I type. I hope to see you/hear from you there!

Edited to tell you that my uploader just crashed, so it will take me awhile to reload all of the pictures and relabel them all. Drat. It has taken me three days to get to where I could download them! But they will be there eventually...

The Many Faces of Maxwell

My children have expressive brows - it is a genetic gift from their father's Italian heritage. Max is finally really starting to use his. He is the baby of one thousand faces. I have said, since the time he was little, that I could snap 10 pictures of him in continuous mode and I couldn't delete one, because each one was different. His facial expressions are constantly changing, and I love to watch his emotions come out in them. For the longest time I have loved to watch him when he is really concentrating on something - the way his little lips are pursed, and his brow furrowed... Here is a classic example from last week when it was warm and he was improvising on the use of this "tee." It takes a lot of concentration to balance a plastic golf ball on top of a Tee Ball tee. You can see how hard his little brain is working to get that ball to stay up there.

Now I have a new favorite face. He just started it a few days ago, and does it when he is really confused or concerned about something.

This is watching me take dinner out of the oven a few evenings ago. I had him back up, then opened the oven and let him feel how hot the air coming out was. It was obviously concerning to him. One of the things I love most about this face is how far apart it sets him from Kane. They look so much alike in many ways, but their expressions are so different to a mother's eye.

One more new face that I love and expect to see a lot more of: the "am I going to get in trouble for this?" face.
Sheepish, head down, eyes looking up, avoiding eye contact. I love every minute of it. And just to be clear, he did NOT get in trouble for eating the dirt here. I figure maybe he was in need of some important trace mineral. Plus, every kid needs to know what dirt tastes like. Heck, every adult should know. So if you don't know, you should give some dirt a try this spring. I hope that you know what it smells like - oh, how I LOVE the smell of soil. I hope that you will give it a try if you don't know what it tastes like. And I would love to see if your feelings about it came through as clearly as my little Maxwell's do.

Busy Day

Today was an incredibly warm day - the high was 60! - and my kids could sense it in their bones. They needed some outside time, but the way it all turned out, our morning was spent running errands all over town which meant they were swept in and out of their car seats with a short time here and there spent in the fresh air. Then we had the most fun afternoon roller skating at a good friend's birthday party. They got some exercise today, that's for sure. And we all had a blast. I used to live on my roller skates, and for me it was like being a fish tossed back in the water. Oh, how I love to skate! And I LOVED taking pictures at the roller rink! The kids had lots of fun learning, and first off Kane was asked to skate by his friend Gianna, and off they went.

A quick check to make sure Mama is coming along...

Here's the Beautiful Birthday Princess Olivia, sitting tall amongst her guests. Don't you just LOVE that blue wall???


With our food allergies, friends' birthdays mean I get to make cupcakes to take with us. They enjoy them, get to participate, then I get to come home and eat as many as I want :-)!


Bella was pretty comfortable by the end, skating as fast as she could to me. She said on the ride home, "Mama, when I was skating, I was skating like a big girl! I was as fast as all the grown-ups, pre-teens and teens there!" Love it.



Kane gave up on the skates by the end and decided just to run. He was much faster that way. He had fun on the skates, don't get me wrong, but the boy needs speed.


Maxwell decided to join in at the end of the evening, out there by himself under the disco ball. Hew as enthralled by the lights on the floor and running along the wall.

They all were, really. Heck, so was I.



But by the end of the day, Kane and Maxwell got to spend their time outside on the porch, while Bella took a cat nap in the chair. Max was finally happy - it was where he really wanted to be.

Now, I used muscles today that I haven't used in awhile, so I'm off to bed to sleep it off! Hope you all enjoyed your day as much as we did our's!