Getting Ready for Baby #3

We learned in January that we are expecting a little girl! Notice the t-shirts...

Our friends had a baby in February and Cora and Peter love holding him! Even Peter is very attentive and curious about the baby. Isn't that the cutest expression on his face?

Cora did a great job holding the new little baby!

Cora snapped this picture of me on February 19...that have been about 25 weeks pregnant.

My SoulCare friends - a "support and encouragement group" for seminary spouses - threw a baby shower for me and the three others also expecting babies this spring/summer!

The SoulCare group who threw us the shower! 

I'd been itching for a sewing project so I made three of these sets for the other moms at the baby shower: a Snuggle wrap (swaddling blanket), baby bib and burp cloth.

See how the "Snuggler" works? Tuck the baby's legs in the pocket and then velcro the wings across the arms in a swaddle hold. Haven't actually tried it yet but it was fun to make for the other girls' babies. I got the free pattern from here:

cdn.makezine.com/make/craft/2010/04/lotta_snuggler_pattern.pdf

We are excited to meet this little girl. She's really starting to become more active more often during the day. I'm feeling good considering I'm now 30 weeks along - only 10 to go!!! We have an infant car seat and stroller, crib and pack and play, a front carrier, a breast pump and that's about it for the big stuff! My sister has offered her other large baby gear items for us to borrow if we have need and room for things like a swing or bouncy seat, and also bottles and clothes from Elena. I am eager for garage sale season since we will need to find newborn and 0-3 month-sized summer clothes since Elena and Cora were both born in the colder seasons. I actually registered at Target for some baby items that either broke, wore out or I got rid of before we moved but would still like to have again! Hopefully since I registered there they will also start sending me some coupons and free samples. :)

Little Artist

Peter still naps in the afternoons and so Cora and I spent a lot of the colder winter months doing "craft time" while Peter was napping. It usually means she just follows her whim cutting, pasting, coloring and asking me how to spell certain words and she ends up with a special creation that she intends to give to one of her friends, often Sharon.  Every once in a while she actually just draws something and it always surprises me with what she has come up with.  

She drew this picture of a castle: notice the different levels of floors and stairs going to each, the bunk beds in the bottom left and the people sitting at a table in the bottom right. I asked what they were eating and she said they were reading their bibles. I'd like to say she sees us sitting at our table just reading our bible often, but it's not nearly as often as I would like to so that element really surprised me!

These hearts were a Valentine craft we did together. Got the idea of Pinterest, of course. It involved shredding crayons, ironing wax paper (she just watched), cutting out hearts and stringing them from the window. Grandma Schippers helped to complete the stringing part - Thanks! 

This is a picture of a cat that she drew and gave to her friend Sharon.

Some other things she's done during "craft time" is a hand sewing project kit, pot holder weaving, beading necklaces, and stamping. I've been pretty amazed at how long she can focus on the activities that she enjoys doing!

A blast of summer in March!

40 degrees above average is what the weather man said one night. Another day we broke a record for a high temperature: I think it was 86 degrees. People would start coming to Michigan for spring break if this were normal March weather!  We had about two weeks of incredibly warm, even hot, days. Something I love about the warming up of spring time is that everyone finds an excuse to be outside and neighbors that you haven't seen much all winter long are outside and catching up together.

However, apartment life has some different dynamics for a family with young children. We have no outdoor space to call our own and no enclosed area that is safe for youngsters to play unsupervised. So when the weather is nice enough that everyone wants to be out (when it's not that nice we're often the only ones playing outside) our outdoor play area - read parking lot - becomes a busy playground that offers Cora and Peter a lot of opportunities in practicing sharing "our" things and play cooperatively with their peers. With up to 20 kids aged 5 and under this also means there is a high need for parental refereeing. An added challenge is that there are 4 different languages being spoken by the kids and their parents. It's quite the experience! I've maybe made it sound negative. Generally we love having so many kids around to spontaneously play with, and the culture and language differences have mostly been intriguing.

Let me help you imagine this: Either we all (me and the kids) go outside or we all stay inside. When we are outside we have to watch out for cars coming and going through our parking lot as that's primarily where the kids play. We have to make sure no one gets too close to the road since people tend to drive at frighteningly high speeds. We have to have limits on how far away the kids can go to play - and they always seem to go in opposite directions. If we bring out a snack there has to be enough for everyone outside and be prepared to share more than we actually eat ourselves. The bikes and scooters have become "everybody's" which is usually fun until there are more kids than there are toys. A big box of sidewalk chalk only lasts one hour. Don't even think of bring out a toy like a ball that requires serious turn taking skills! Now don't forget that even 5 year olds start having "best friends" and can make each other feel left out. They are very capable of creating a bit of drama. Throw in the complexities of multiculturalism and limited language abilities and their playtime can become quite confusing. Now consider what happens when Cora runs to me saying that her Japanese friend wants her to play in her house. I go to verify with her mom who speaks little English (but way more that I speak Japanese!) if that's what's happening and it appears this is the case but some of the Korean kids have followed them into the house, too. This mom now has a small apartment full of kids that she can barely communicate with and who knows what's going on! She needs to make dinner which is why she was bringing her kids inside and I start wondering if she actually invited Cora over or if her daughter did so without asking her and when I came to verify it sounded like I was asking her if it was OK with her to have Cora play inside...and then all the others followed suit...Who knows?? Awkward...So she kindly invited me in also and I offered to help her with her dinner preparations. She was making "dumplings" and said it was Chinese food! We worked on it together for a while and afterwards I took my kids home. I needed to start making my own dinner and it was just time to go home.

Last week it was exhausting! I loved the warm weather but with there being constant kid activity right out our door and windows it was hard to get anything done inside or to convince my kids that we actually had to walk through the crowd of their friends to our car and run an errand. Never mind getting a walk in!  So it sounds silly, but I'm finding a little relief in the return of colder weather. It's still nice enough to get outside quite a bit but the swarm of activity has fizzled out for a while.

Catching bubbles

Picnicking on our deck

Still love this house and glad we brought it with us!

Warmer Winter in 2012

***I found this post unfinished and thought I'd just put it up the way it is. I wrote this on Feb 13.***
This Michigan winter feels like a Grand Junction winter! We've had a considerable amount of sunshine and warmer temperatures and very little snow. When it has snowed it has been a beautiful white winterland for a few days and then melts away! We know this is not normal, since every day someone makes a comment about the weather being strangely wonderful!

Last weekend we decided to enjoy a beautiful Saturday afternoon and do some exploring. We drove out to Muskegeon and went to the north shore of the channel. There was a very brisk wind, but otherwise it was beautiful.  The sun was so bright we could barely look at the camera!