Total Slacker

Well, I've been totally neglectful about blogging lately. Oops. Four kids is boggling my mind. I thought we'd be getting into a groove. Not so! Life is crazy! There's just so much going on all the time that I can't catch my breath! We'll get it figured out soon enough, but in the meantime, whew! I wish I was the Energizer Bunny. I found an unfinished post and I think I'll just post it at whatever point it's at and move on. I think I've posted once or twice since I started it, so it will be down the page a little ways, but it has some great pictures so it's worth a look. I think I'll continue with the here's and there's and then post our Cali trip and whatever other categories of things are on my camera. And these are in backwards order because blogger hates to put the newer batch of uploaded pictures at the bottom of the post. I hate that.

Today I made a baby carrier for Alaina. I had some new ideas and I wanted to try them out without wasting cloth, so I just used scraps. It's called an onbuhimo and it's a Japanese style carrier, much like a mei tai except that instead of straps at the waist, there are rings. The shoulder straps go over the shoulders, cross in back, go through the rings and tie in back (or reverse that for a back carry. Confused? youtube has some videos if you're really curious). I totally got lucky with the shoulder strap on this one. In fact, the whole idea to make an onbuhimo instead of a mei tai was impromptu. I didn't have any fabric long enough for straps so I thought of using the rings at the waist (I'd seen pics of the Japanese style carrier before). Then I looked in my fabric stash and found a bunch of scarfs that my mom had given me and there happened to be a black one (I was hoping for two). I went back to the carrier and discovered that the top rail was open in such a way that I could just slide the scarf through the "tunnel" and voila! Two straps, no cutting, no sewing! Alaina thought it was great and I thought it was adorable!

None of the edges are finished, so you'll have to excuse the crudeness of it. I mostly wanted to see how the snappy idea I had would work. It's much too hard to explain, but I wanted to be able to have a narrower crotch seat so that Russell could sit forward facing comfortably. It would work, but it's not as pretty.

Yesterday Alaina wanted to give her dollies a ride in my mei tai. It looks so funny with little twin dolly heads poking out!

I LOVE that my girls can pull off boy clothes! I just think it's so darn cute!

Alaina does this funny little scrunched-shoulders run. I have to get it on video before she outgrows it. It's SO cute!

Sleeping boxer pose

Ryker came down with a fever one day at my parents house. He wasn't even phased about it. He looked SO sad, but when I asked him if he was okay (before I knew he had a fever) he said with a chipper voice, "Yeah! I'm fine!" He was sleepy but never cranky or anything. He's such a tough kid.

Alaina loves to walk around with things on her head and crash into things (she's a HUGE sensory seeker. It will be interesting to see how sensory things go with her as she gets older). This time it's a big box. At home she likes to walk around with a pink bucket on her head. It cracks me up! (We'd been working on potty training and she was running around semi nude hence the drawn-in shorts)

Baby asleep in Grammie's lap. Awwwww!

Alaina hunting bugs.

For Kari:

She couldn't get that Indian style pose back but she tried! (Yes, I said Indian style--she's got some Indian in her, right?)

More for Kari:

(Kari gave us some adorable outfits wanted to see pics of Alaina wearing them)

During potty training boot camp (read the full story here), we played in the backyard when the weather was nice. Hence the naked bum. But I love how much kids learn from watching their parents (and sometimes I hate it). I loved how Alaina was measuring and marking things. Cutie pie!

By the way, she's pretty much potty trained at 20 months! A few accidents here and there when things are out of the norm, and she wears a diaper at night, but all in all, I'd say she's got it! And as far as I'm concerned, baby pottying is the way to go! It didn't go quite like I'd hoped due to morning sickness putting things on hold, but it was still SO worth it to be done with diapers by 20 months and to have the potty training be SO stress free and power struggle free! I'd do it again. I AM doing it again with Landon.

Love Russell's shirt!