Happy fake birthday my Leap day Bug!

Today we celebrate Bug's 3rd birthday. Next year we will need to have a big celebration when she actually has a real birthday. Three years ago little Bug quickly came into our world, and she has been making us laugh ever since.

Bug is such a silly girl who loves to make people laugh. That girl can be so stubborn and whiney, but goodness she is charming with her constant little smile. Bug has some hoarding tendencies, which might be from being a second child, but anything that actually belongs to her she holds onto tightly all day and loves carrying around random bags full of junk. She loves accessories... every morning she puts on 2 necklaces, about 4 bracelets, multiple bows, a headband, maybe a crown.... whatever she can find (she was thrilled that so many people gave her accessories for her birthday party). She always chooses her own outfits, and I just love her 3-year-old style.

Belle is her best friend, and she still spends most of her day shadowing her big sister. I think that Bug is an introvert though, and she always makes sure she gets some alone time reading quietly in her room. She thrives when she gets some one-on-one time with her Mommy, and my Bug is such a good snuggler. For now, she is still very much a Mama's girl.

This year we got to watch Bug become a big sister, and she is a great one. She adores little Lettie and is always quick to bring Lettie a toy and give her hugs. We love you so much sweet little Bug!! Have a wonderful birthday!

SAHM slow mornings

There are a lot of things that I miss about teaching and working outside the home, but one thing I do not miss is waking up early and being out of the house at 7am. Being a SAHM has it's challenges of course, but I love spending so much time with my girls, and I really enjoy the flexibility in our schedule. The girls and I rarely have anywhere we need to be these days. None of them are in school yet or doing any activities (Belle is about to start soccer though!), so going to Mass is really the only set time we ever have to be anywhere. We have to make trips to the grocery store and the library, but we can do that around nap time or lunch, and nobody knows if we don't finish our breakfast or get out of pajamas until 10:00. It is awesome. I know our schedule won't always be like this, but I'm enjoying it for now. 

Belle and I love smoothies, so we spend many mornings sitting together enjoying a smoothie after breakfast. We use coconut milk, strawberries, bananas, and honey and yummm they are good. Belle loves to talk and ask a million questions, so we always have nice little chats while we drink our smoothies together. I'm always so glad when I actually take the time to sit down and just focus on a conversation with one of my girls. Hopefully I will always be able to make the time for these precious little talks. 

Here is Belle's face after asking me for the millionth time if I can pleeeeease put her in school now. Sorry girl, you might be ready, but your Mommy is not. 

Bug doesn't actually like smoothies (or juice or anything other than water), but she never wants to be left out of the fun, so she always insists I pour her one. She swears that she likes it and drinks one sip, but she is always happy to hang out with her big sister and Mama. I love this season of our life full of slow-paced mornings with the occasional temper tantrum thrown in for good measure. 

Lessons in Lent

Today we were doing our Lenten prayers with the girls (we've been using the book Bringing Lent Home with Mother Teresa), and we were discussing humility. We talked about focusing on the accomplishments of others instead of our own accomplishments. Then we had the girls think of strengths of the other people in our family. As always, I was amazed at how perceptive Belle and Bug are... they notice everything. Belle was thinking of everyone's strengths, and this is what she came up with:
Belle: "Bug is good at putting away all of the bath toys." (absolutely true)
          "Daddy is good at doing the dishes." (always)
          "Mommy is good at going right to sleep." (yep, true)
the Officer (stifling his laughter): "Can you think of something else Mommy is good at?"
Belle: "She is good at eating all of her dinner."

Mission of our Lenten lesson accomplished. I was humbled. I am good at sleeping and eating. Little Lettie and I have that in common :)

A Frozen Birthday

Last Saturday we had a Frozen 3rd and 4th birthday party for Belle and Bug. Here are 7 quick takes and lots of pictures of the party. 

1. Decorations. Yesterday I posted about the crafts we made for the girls' party if you are looking for more details about any of them. Now moving on to all the fun we had at the party...  

2. Food. We made regular chili and white chili for lunch, and we offered an assortment of frozen themed snacks. We had personal flurries (popcorn), Olaf arms (white chocolate dipped pretzel sticks), Sven snacks (veggies), Sven sandwiches, Anna's hot chocolate, and Elsa's ice candy.

3. We had lots of wonderful family and friends come celebrate with us, and we had so much fun. 

We were so glad that my Mom and Sister came in town for the party :)

4. Costumes. The girls wanted the Officer to dress up as Kristoff and for me to dress up as Sven (seriously??), but I conveniently didn't get around to making those costumes. We did have lots of cute girls in costumes though....

look at all the pretty little Elsa and Anna girls

5. Games. For games we started out with pin the carrot on Olaf

6. Obstacle course. We had some unseasonably warm weather for the girls' party, so we headed outside to play. Aunt Mantha planned an exciting obstacle course for the kids outside. It involved racing, pulling ice sleds, and being chased by "wolves"

Two princesses ready to drag their ice sleds

Princess Anna being chased by a wolf

Stopping for a little snack break with Nana

7. Cake. We finished the day enjoying delicious cake made by Aunt Mantha. (I showed the girls a bunch of cake designs on Pinterest... they chose this, and Aunt Mantha made it look awesome!)

At the end of the day I asked the girls what their favorite part of the day was, and they told me it was "the cake and seeing all of their frezins". Happy birthday my sweet girls! I hope you had a fun day.

Their Aunt Mantha made these lovely costumes for them for Halloween, and they were excited to wear them again.

Lettie had lots of fun celebrating her big sisters

Linking up at This Ain't the Lyceum for 7 quick takes

Frozen crafting

On Saturday we threw a Frozen themed birthday party for Belle and Bug. My SIL and I teamed up to create a pinterest-worthy party, and we had so much fun doing it! Here are the details from a few of the projects that we did. 

I just learned how to sew last month, so I'm always looking for simple ways to practice my rookie sewing skills. Making a fabric bunting for the party was perfect practice, and it looked cute. I used a tutorial I found at Glorious Treats, and it was easy to follow. I got all the fabric in the remnant section at Joann's, so it was really cheap. The sewing was all straight lines so it was easy. I did run into a few problems when I was sewing the bias tape along the top- I hit a pin and ran out of thread on my bobbin- you know the rookie sewing mistakes, but over all it was simple, cheap, and I think it looks pretty good! 

I also made a Happy Birthday banner using my Cricut. I've always been able to just use the 2 cartridges that came with the machine. The accents cartridge had snowflakes, so I cut out a million snowflakes, and I ended up breaking the cricut mat. I cut letters (3.75"), glued them on the filled in snowflakes (4.25"), and then I glued those on a blue snowflake design (4.5"). Then I hole-punched them and hung them on a blue ribbon. We taped snowflakes on the wall and mantle, and then we hung the extras from the ceiling.

I aslo used the cricut to cut out some simple labels for all of the food, and my SIL and i had fun creating Frozen themed food. 

My SIL made this ice candy, which was perfect to add to the cake

My SIL is the real talented creator, and she made a fantastic cake for this birthday party. Didn't she do an incredible job??

She also made the girls' Frozen costumes for Halloween, and they were happy to wear them again for their party. Tomorrow I'll post details about the actual party and all of the fun we had! 

What Sundays should look like

I always dream of these wonderful faith and family-filled Sundays, but it doesn't always happen. Half of our Sundays the Officer works right after Mass, so I spend most of the day alone with the girls. All of our Sundays are spent wrangling toddlers at Mass, which usually is not the restful, holy experience that I dream of for the Sabbath.

But a few Sundays ago we had a perfect Sunday. It was exactly what I think Sundays should be like. We started the day with 11am Mass, and we made it through the entire Mass without having to take any of them out, and we didn't even have to whisper-threaten them a single time! If you have ever taken toddlers/babies to Mass you know this is a huge accomplishment. Even little Lettie decided not to have her usual Sunday morning blow-out diaper. We decided that after such perfect Mass behavior we should treat the girls to some donuts.

this kid knows how to eat a donut

Luckily the boy Miks were well behaved at Mass, and their parents also thought a trip for donuts was in order. So we went off to donuts with 7 excited cousins, who enjoyed funny paper hats and lots and lots of sugar. Then we went back to the boy's house for some Sunday afternoon naps, cousin play time, and a yummy dinner. It was a relaxing Sunday full of prayer, family time, laughter, good food, and lots of love. I wish all of our Sundays could be so perfect.

The day I lost a baby

Two years ago the Officer and I lost our third baby. I don't usually talk too much about it, but I want other women going through this to know they are not alone. I have written out the birth stories of my three daughters, and this other child of mine deserves for his (or her?) story to be told.

When Bug was 10 months old we found out we were pregnant and would be having our third child in under 3 years. The newest baby was due to arrive in September 2013. I must admit I was a little nervous. I had been nervous when I first found out about both Belle and Bug's pregnancies too. Having 2 babies before your 2nd anniversary is a little nerve-wracking. And here I was again, nervous about having another baby so close, and mostly nervous because what would people think about our constantly growing family. Then just like all of my other pregnancies that initial nervousness grew into excitement. I hadn't met a baby yet that I didn't think was just this greatest thing ever, and I knew this baby was no different. So our excitement for this little unborn baby quickly grew, and the Officer and I looked forward to sharing the news with both our families at the girls' upcoming Dr. Seuss birthday party.

The day we finally laid eyes on Bug 

Then when I was only 8 weeks pregnant I started bleeding. I called my OBGYN, and he scheduled me to come in for an ultrasound the next day. So on January 31 my kind mother-in-law came to watch Belle and Bug, and the Officer and I went to an ultrasound that I knew was not going to go well. I spent the whole day preparing myself for the news that I had lost my baby, but of course I clung to hope.

The ultrasound picture came up and the tiny baby was not moving. The Officer gripped my hand and my tears fell as the ultrasound tech told us that they couldn't find a heartbeat and "the fetus" was measuring smaller than "it" should. I cried even harder. The ultrasound tech was trying to be compassionate, but her words stung, like she was denying the human life that I had just lost. The Officer just hugged me and held my hand as he somehow walked me to the car and got me home. As always, that man was my rock, and he was the strength that I just couldn't find that afternoon.

Lettie's big ultrasound

My MIL watched the girls that evening and the Officer and I went out on an amazing dinner date. We talked about the little baby that only the two of us had ever known, we talked about how blessed we were with our two babies on Earth, and as always we laughed. In the car on the way home I cried some more. That night we named our third child Michael Joseph, after two great Saints that we wanted protecting our family. We have prayed for sweet Michael Joseph every single day since.

The next day I saw my OBGYN, which really just became a counseling session. He prayed with me and for me and for Michael Joseph. Instead of pretending I had lost some nonliving thing he acknowledged that we had lost a child. We talked about all of the guilt I was feeling.... I felt guilty because I had not been excited about this baby at first, I felt guilty because at some moment this baby died and what was I doing at that exact moment? Then eventually I would feel guilty because I wasn't feeling sad anymore.

39 weeks pregnant with Lettie

I still have some moments of sadness when I think about our baby in Heaven, but mostly there is just joy now. Joy in the wonderful life I have, and the 3 miracles I have been blessed with on Earth. Joy in the hope that someday I will enter Heaven and meet the child I never got to know. There was so much joy (and nausea) in my pregnancy with Lettie, because I had experienced how precious and fragile life is.

The thing that really helped me "move on" was the support around me. My husband is incredible, and our families and friends immediately provided help and prayers. We had people who made us dinner, people who sent flowers, a memorial stone sent to us, words of encouragement, and of course more prayers than we could ever know. We were surrounded by people who valued the life of our unborn baby. If you ever know a couple suffering a miscarriage support them and pray for them.  Many of our friends had suffered miscarriages themselves and knew exactly what we were going through. Hopefully I can provide the same support and love to other women who suffer a miscarriage.

My sweet Michael Joseph, we love you and miss you. God is good all the time.