thank you, Meecie

proud of my kids

No pictures but today jules, nina and I had to hole up in our bathroom for over 30 minutes waiting out a storm. I was in tears worried about Kai and Nate and hating being away from them in that moment. But Nina made a game of it. I suppose it's just being a kid and completely unaware of the real dangers that face us. But she made it into a game of hide and seek and took my mind off of the oncoming storm. At the time I was so-not-into-it. After I was so grateful to her for being my comic relief.
Ayayay. Love my kids.

kai is growing up

The other night all five of us were in the bathroom, nina and jules bathing and kai was helping me bathe jules.
I told Nate that I had forgotten it was picture day and gave a sideways glance at Kai, who was wearing an oversized saints black tshirt and his blue polyester spain soccer shorts. Nate laughed. Kai gave us this half-grin and said "Hey, at least it wasn't those BEIGE shorts with the big POCKETS that really BOTHER me!" which we had bought for the big photoshoot. There was something so mature in the way he said it and acknowledged that we were kind of poking fun at his clothing but he wasn't hurt at all by it. He was able to play along with it.
I dunno. Hard to describe it but I was really proud of him in that moment, and really sad at how grownup he is.

Nina can't sleep

"Oh, see, we have a rule in our house that bedtime is 7:30 and the kids never get to come out of their room after that. That's a big rule."
Said by one of the covington montessori moms.
Well. Then she misses out on conversations like this.
Mom: "Nina, what would your ideal birthday be?" (of course I had to spend some time explaining this)
Nina: "First I'd go to the toy store and buy a barbie toy. Then I'd go joggin'."
Mom: "By yourself or with me?"
Nina: "Um...with me. With you."
Mom: "Aw, thanks, that sounds great. And then what?"
Nina: "Then we'd have my birthday party! A pool party!"
Mom: "What kind of cake would you have?"
Nina: "Um...a frostin' cake. Frostin'."

That's my gal.
btw, she said she couldn't sleep not because she took a nap but because she ate chocolate chips (she fell asleep while singing to yo gabba gabba in the carline and I transferred her to our bed and she slept all rosy and cherubic til 4 when Jules and I woke her up) - chocolate scares them a bit now since the night they were desperate to sleep but couldn't after eating uber-chocolatey petit-fours.

bedtime

To two squirrely little kids in bed tonight...pushing 8:15 and quite frustrated and beat...Nate said,
"I love you guys so much, and I love my Kai and Nina time, but now I need my daddy time."
Nina: "What's daddy time?"
And Kai replied, "That when he talks to mommy, has dinner, and watches basketball."

We'll see if that made sense to Nina. 20 minutes later and I hear pounding and toilet flushing and giggles but no faces have appeared yet.

Roahen-Harrisons

roly poly bugs

Remember how much Nina loved to look for bugs under the bricks in Sacramento? The kids found some roly poly bugs in the yard the other day. Put them in a jar. Nate had them laughing so hard.

an afternoon with nina

Nina helps Jules with tummy time after school.

Waking up

Julian is so lucky to see the beautiful faces of his siblings peering down at him when he wakes up in the morning. He is so thrilled to see them, so many coos and smiles at that time of the day.

Brackets!

NCAA tournament time. We all filled out our brackets the other night, even rolled the dice to get Julian's. It was fun but painful for a kid that can't make decisions there were a lot of decisions to make!
This occurred after the kids went to bed and couldn't get to sleep...for a long time...I went into their room at 8 and they were just flopping around on their beds. It looked like they really wanted to sleep. Then I remembered their dessert - chocolate petit-fours that a physical therapy business had dropped off for Nate. I explained the effects of caffeine to them.
Last night the kids had a little bedtime snack of irish soda bread that I had made for Nina's class - they had a teeny weeny amount of chocolate chips. Kids had a hard time sleeping again and Kai said, "Dad, I think we had too much caffeine tonight. There were chocolate chips in that bread!"

bumbo!

He tried out the bumbo the other day but didn't last long. Head control isn't there quite yet. Nina got a kick out of it.

Jules

Getting so big. We were looking at Kai and Nina baby pics last night and realized he actually looks more like Kai than Nina at this age. He keeps us smiling.

this deserves its own post

Nina was so busy last week at the beach. Here she is with her setup.
Note her dirty legs. She loves, loves, loves playing in the dirt.

ballerina girl

The cutest little nugget in her gymnastics class

Ms. Nina

From new to old...in JuJu's crib...modeling her new haircut...she loves the swing as much as Kai...planting herbs and veggies and flowers with Nate.

nate and jules conversate

kai and jules talking

happy tub baby