We’ve been cooped up in the house due to cold weather and illness for the past 2 1/2 weeks. Inspired by an email from my sister I decided to have a little fun with Flora:
Taking care of Baby: A 2 part series
Rub-a-dub Tub
Rock-a-bye Baby
Animal adventures: A 4 part series
Little Ladybug
Bee-youtiful maiden
Surprised by a bee!
Wave rider
Random:
Teen Dreams
Lance is quickly developing into a little man. He is very curious about Daddy going to work and shows rapt attention when Daddy does projects around the house. He even recognizes which jobs are man jobs and will volunteer to do them: I was unloading the sleeping girls from the car after running errands and Lance reminded me there were groceries to unload and insisted on taking some in himself.
Early last week our washing machine started to leak. Brian opened up the machine to find the problem and both kids watched in wonder!
Lance stuck by Daddy for the entire project and even dug his drill out of the toy box when he saw that Daddy was using one. He kept telling me “Lance is working” in a very serious voice.
Lance also believes in working smarter, not harder. Or maybe it’s because this was Mommy’s project of gathering leaves to mulch in a friend’s garden.
Here Lance shows his manliness raking leaves – maybe you just have to give a guy tools to inspire work.
Or maybe it’s the presence of another man.
Saturday at breakfast Brian said he needed to take the car to have the tires rotated and oil changed. I asked Lance if he wanted to go to work with Daddy and suddenly breakfast was forgotten and he was sliding out of his chair to find his shoes. He was one proud little guy waving goodbye to Mommy and the baby as he “went to work.”
Ivy often tags along but her idea of work is a little different. That and the lift at the car place was a little scary.
And here’s Flora working up an appetite – this is how she acts when it’s almost time to eat!
We’ve been under a spell of cold weather recently and my kiddos are really missing the park. Looking ahead at the weather forecast I made sure to let them play their little hearts out the day before the weather changed and caught some fun pictures:
This is a handicap park and the kids love running up and down the ramps. This time I brought their little riding toy to add to the fun. Lance took over right away, pushing the car up to me….
…where I would give him a big push down to make him go fast! That grin can make me do anything!
I finally pried Lance off the car long enough for Ivy to take a turn.
She didn’t have the finesse to push the car back up..
…and so came up with her own way of doing things. I laughed good and hard because this is so Ivy – more likely to employ brawn over brain.
The last two pictures are for my mom:
This one because I think Ivy looks so much like my own toddler pictures.
And this one because Flora is smiling and cute and doesn’t have her face covered by a pacifier as in an earlier post.
We all have so much fun at the park – we can’t wait until it warms up again!
We were at home Sunday morning due to illness and around noon I stepped outside to get something and discovered it was snowing!
We bundled the kids up and took them outside to enjoy it. They were awestruck and Lance got the cutest little grin on his face.
Out in the parking lot there was enough accumulation on the car to make snowmen. Over Christmas the kids really got to liking snowmen (or at least the pictures and decorations) so when we actually made one it took a few minutes to sink in. However, they soon got into the process and helped to stack the snowballs we made.
Lance would count them “1…2…3!” No matter how many we made he always came up with that number.
Of course, things eventually degraded into a snowball fight. I think Lance takes after Daddy 
Finally we made some tracks in the snow.
Lance and Ivy walked hand in hand. Good thing we enjoyed it right away because several hours later it was melted!
I’m sure some are wondering if life with three is overwhelming. Well, to be honest, I was wondering that myself. Brian’s mom kept the oldest two for a week after Flora was born so I could have time to rest and bond with our new little one. The night they got back they were wired and it left me a little shell shocked. All that night I had nightmares about how hard this was going to be. But each time I woke to feed the baby I started praying fervently for God’s grace to make it through the next day.
And you know what? God answered! The day went along fairly smoothly. After all, I had only added one rather sleepy little child to the mix. There were meals in the freezer and the house was clean (at least it started that way). As the week went on, I was very aware of how the Lord was giving me the strength needed for each day – from warm weather so the kids could play outside, to letting Flora sleep for 7 hours the night I needed to get up early and help Brian get to work.
It’s a lot of fun to watch the Lance and Ivy interact with their new sister. Everything I do with the baby holds some fascination and prompts new types of play. Just today, while I was feeding Flora, I noticed Lance was holding his toy monkey a little under his shirt. I asked what he was doing and he turned away with an embarrassed smile. Then as I burped Flora he started patting his monkey on the back too then stuck the monkey back under his shirt when I resumed feeding.
The kids have turned out to be better helpers than I would have expected from a 2 and 1 year old.
Lance loves to hold the baby and sees it as his duty to take care of her, no matter how loud she cries or how tired he might be. Here he was nodding off to sleep while trying to keep her quiet with a pacifier.
It took Ivy a little longer to develop any type of mothering instinct. She is fascinated by the pacifier, however, and loves to give it to Flora regardless if she’s happy, crying or sleeping. Fortunately Grammy gave her a doll for Christmas that came with a pacifier and it spares Flora some of the “love.”
We are doing infant potty training with Flora – which, thanks to Brian’s help over the holidays, has been going quite well. The other day I saw Lance “potty” his monkey, telling it to “pee pee” and then making the appropriate sound. I’ve seen Ivy do the same thing with her doll so maybe the idea will catch on all around!
Overall it has been a good transition with the added bonus of having a beautiful little girl to love. Flora is a very good baby which helps a lot. Just last night she slept from 9pm to 7am, she doesn’t cry much and it thrills me again and again as I look at her and marvel at how cute and little she is.
We are memorizing Psalm 127 right now and it say that “Children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is His reward.” I really feel like I have won some sort of prize as I look at my three wonderful children and amazing husband. Growing up I always wanted to be a wife and a mother and that dream has been realized many fold. Praise the Lord!