Popeye, The Sequel

Here are some pictures from our trip to to the Toledo Zoo (we went while Steve was in Haiti). We had lots of fun with Great Grandma Lorraine, Hannah, and Emily. Unfortunately, Olivia wasn't feeling good that day and spent most of it moaning in the baby sling.
Abby loves posing on or in anything.
Abby riding the zoo train, which takes you on a safari and all around the perimeter of the African exhibit. She really got into the zoo this time around.
Posing (above) in a Dora Explorer hat - Thanks Grandma Lorraine! And (below) modeling in a nest.
Abby's arm (the other one) is huge again today, along with the bridge of her nose. It's apparently going to be a recurring theme this summer. This is the 4th big swelling incident since the mosquitoes arrived. Yuck! And, since Olivia is scheduled to see an allergy specialist next Wednesday she is off her medications. So we have two unhappy ladies around here. One with big swollen bites and the other with a faucet for a nose.

Steve and our friend Trevor started the new door project yesterday. They got the trim boards all pulled off in one piece and re-usable, so we are off to a good start. Hopefully next week we will have the old door out and the new one in. I'm looking forward to being able to go into and out of the backyard the easy way. It will make the rest of this summer much easier from a parent of two kids in the backyard perspective.

Abby's Art

So... Here is Abby's drawing. It is her riding on daddy's head and Olivia riding on my head (her explanation). The scratched out part was her, but then she decided to ride so she removed the original Abby from the picture. I'm pretty impressed by her art skills.

Toddler Bed Update

It's been one week since Olivia started sleeping in her toddler bed. It's going. Somedays it's going okay, somedays not. But with Steve and I both being sleep deprived before, we are both getting pretty tired (and short). Last night Olivia was up an in our room twice and I had to put her in her room and leave her there to get into bed and go to sleep. I'm finding that if I try to stay until she's asleep he thinks it's playtime and usually I wake her up in the process of leaving. I guess she was well trained in going to bed herself.

Abby has started drawing pictures with recognizable figures. Last weekend she drew a picture of our whole family. She is growing up too fast!

Some Pictures from Steve's trip to Haiti

Students at the school where the team was building the kindergarten classroom (roof and posts for walls)
The accomodations
Steve and Ryan with the head of the Haitian help that was hired
Pastor Dave, Ryan, Steve, and Lindsay at the top of the mountain on the drive from Port Au Prince to Jacmel
Building concrete forms for the posts to hold the roof

I'm not going to try to tell you anything about Steve's trip to Haiti, except that they went, they survived, and they are home in one piece with stories to tell. Maybe I can talk him into sitting down and typing a reflection on it, but knowing him you'll just have to find him and ask him in person about it. It sounds amazing and intense and scary. I'm proud to call him my husband and very happy to have him home!

Rainy Day Fun

We are on day 4 of all day sprinkles and rain and we are running out of ways to entertain little people. Today is our day to have Maddie & Wyatt over so that helps break up the boredom for all of them, but it still stinks to be inside all week long. And if I believe the weatherman it looks like next week will be the same way. So today we are having an indoor camp out (and testing our spare tent so we can loan it to friends for camping together this summer). It's been a good distraction so far. And maybe later I will brave walking all these kids to get some produce - but that may be too crazy for even me.

Pudding Face

Fingers Crossed

We are two naps and one overnight into Olivia in the toddler bed and so far it's going great (knock on wood)! Maybe I can survive this child after all...

Growing Up Too Fast

Olivia is officially growing up too fast. She got her first bloody nose tonight - she took a spill climbing onto her new big girl bed. And she is sleeping in that new big girl bed because sometime during her nap she managed to climb out of her crib, onto the dresser that was next to the crib (about a 4 inch gap between), rip a jewelry box in half and play with the barbie shoes that were hidden inside. I'd caught her climbing up the crib to get into it the other day, but I didn't think too much of it. Now that we've established her ability to scale it both ways, it is time to switch to the toddler bed so that she isn't falling from the top rail of the crib. Ugh... just what I don't want to be dealing with on Steve's first night home from Haiti. I'm sure he's just as tired as I am and we probably could have waited another night or two before we made the switch, but I'm of the better safe than sorry camp. So it may be a sleepless night while Olivia figures out how to sleep in a big girl bed at 15 months (We switched Abby at 17 months and Olivia was supposed to wait until 24... as if my plans for her ever work out).

So... in less than an hour Steve will be home. His baby girls are waiting up, but they are pretty much crabby. Olivia didn't really take an afternoon nap since she was apparently climbing on dressers and destroying property during her 30 minutes of time in her room this afternoon. And we had friends over for lunch, so that wears these little girls out just a little bit. But they are bathed, snacked, and had their medicine, so Steve can walk in and start in with his teeth brushing and story routine. Man will it be great to have him home and have that little break each night again!

It's June Already?!?

Well it's been another month (plus) - and what a month it's been. We are right in the middle of Steve being in Haiti and that has been quite the challenge these last few days as the girls really begin to miss their daddy. The other times we've been away from him the girls have had the benefit of being the travelers and so that made it easy because there were grandmas and grandpas around to distract them from their daddy being away. We had that for the first five days while we visited Great Grandma Lorraine and Great Grandpa Harley, but now we are back at home and there is a distinct void without our daddy here. And probably too much estrogen in this house!

So... since the beginning of May we have done and dealt with a lot. Both girls had unscheduled trips to the doctors office. First Olivia because we finally decided her snotty nose was not going to go away on its own and it was making her miserable. She is now taking two different allergy medicines and I'm not noticing much improvement. She sees the doctor again next Friday for her 15 month check up, so from there I'm kind of expecting to be sent to see the allergy specialist in Petoskey to see if we can figure out how to make her comfortable. She has been markedly happier since adding the second medication, but the snot still flows freely from her nose. Abby also had an unexpected trip for an infection in her arm. She got her first mosquito bite and her arm doubled in size. She's since had lots of bites and no reaction, so I don't believe it was just the mosquito bite. A course of antibiotics later her arm looks great expect for a small spot that will probably scar where it had some discharge from the swelling. Yuck! So I'm hoping that we can be done with all that stuff for the rest of the summer.

In May we got to go down and visit family and celebrate my sister Hannah's graduation from high school - man did that make me feel old! The girls had a great time with family and we enjoyed celebrating with lots of friends and family we don't get to see too often. It was ridiculously hot the day of the open house, so I will admit that I was very, very glad to return to the Upper Peninsula the next day (bet you'd never thought I would say that 10 years ago if you knew me). And, like I said before, we just got back from visiting Great Grandma & Grandpa in Blissfield. While we were there the girls got to visit the Toledo Zoo. The last few visits Abby was pretty scared of most of the animals (or uninterested) so it was a pleasant surprise that she loved it this time. She's still talking about the animals she saw and the fun she had. Unfortunately Olivia was not feeling good that day, so she spent her time at the zoo in the baby sling moaning and whimpering. I felt bad for hauling her out, but it was our chance to see the baby elephant and she would have been just as miserable at Grandma & Grandpa's house. It's been a lot of travel, so we are looking forward to a low-key summer with some camping around here and hopefully people traveling up to visit us, since the summers here are magical.

Behind Again...

Yep... it's been more than two weeks. I'm still not mastering this blogging on top of two kid raising. And the kid raising is more important, so this may be a sparse few years. But someday I'll appreciate the fact that I have at least recorded some of the craziness.

We had a really fun mother's day weekend enjoying the beautiful weather that has finally arrived in the upper peninsula. It's been a long wait for spring, but it's finally springing up all around. Yesterday the girls and I spent a lovely afternoon planting things in our garden and pulling up weeds. We added a mature poppy plant (who wants to wait 2 years for flowers?!?), a hydrangea, and a wide assortment of annuals, thanks to Abby's great flower picking skills. She loves red. A lot. But she also got pink, purple, and yellow flowers, so it's going to be a very colorful garden this summer.

We also enjoyed a free trip to Mackinac Island on Saturday. The Star Line ferry company was offering free trips to the island for Chippewa and Mackinac county residents, so we took advantage of that and enjoyed a beautiful walk along the waterfront and into the woods on the island. We even enjoyed some wildflowers and a squirrel who was pretty friendly. And Abby enjoyed eying up the horses, without getting to close of course.