What a week!

I don't even know where to begin about last week.  Seriously, when we sat down to supper on Friday night, there was a likely chance that I was going to fall asleep right into my spaghetti.  And when you hear about everything we did last week, you might fall into yours too!

 

Monday of last week was the quietest of the days of the week- only rearranging my work schedule to accommodate one program practice for Lauren after her regular school day.  It got slightly more complicated when she insisted on coming to the office with me.  But I didn't fight too hard since I knew it meant one less trip from Milton to Turbotville to Lewisburg, my normal run when I have to pick up and return back home for any reason.  And so, Lauren and I spent the rest of the day together until it was time to pick Joshua up from school.

 

Tuesday was special because Jason had a big business event that he had organized in State College that required fancy clothes and a nice dinner and cocktail hour.  Sign me up.  It was extra fun because we got to spend the evening at the Nittany Lion Inn, and I always have loved it there.  Maybe I just felt like I was sort of back home at PSU, if only for a few hours.  I even got a chance to sit down in the lobby and read a Collegian for the first time in, ahem, 14 years.  Sad but true.  Jason did an amazing job with the event that he and his team planned, and it really was fun to watch him as he worked.  I did my part by being slave labor for the set up duties that we had, but it was almost a flashback to the work that we had done on the Kiwanis Committee a long time ago that was the beginning of us dating.  So, fun memories all around for Tuesday.  The kids were home with our amazing babysitter, Jen, and all were having a great time.  Sadly, Jen is thinking about moving on from Lewisburg, and so the search is on for someone that the kids will love just as much as they do Jen.  And I have to tell you, that's going to be a tough one.  We returned home to two snoring mini-sized Dugans, and one Mara who was wide awake, sitting in the middle of our bed watching a show.  There was no way she was going to go to bed without me.  She promptly crashed when I rocked with her, but bless her heart, she was exhausted.  It was after 10 when we returned home.

 

Wednesday morning started bright and early--- scratch that--- PAINFULLY early as Jason, Lauren and I all had to be at the school by 7:15 for the annual Legacy Breakfast.  It was a great morning, celebrating all of the special things that happen at Meadowbrook, and we were thrilled to be there.  But I may have wished a few times that this was a lunchtime event as I was coaxing the kids to get up and around much earlier than usual.  It's amazing how changing the schedule even a little bit in the mornings just throws off the whole thing.  But we made it.  Lauren sang with her class and did an outstanding job.  She was waving at us like crazy, and sang her little heart out with all of the motions like a champ.  We were so proud of her.

 

Thursday was Joshua's field trip to Lake Tobias with his class, so we were up and out early again to head to the bus.  I so loved having a day to spend with just Joshua (well, just Joshua and the other 23 first graders and all manners of parents that were along with them).  I considered it a great success that I did not toss my cookies on the school bus as we made our way down the windy road to Lake Tobias.  The kids had a blast riding the safari and feeding the animals, going to the reptile show and getting to touch a real snake and aligator, and enjoying the petting zoo.  We had a nice picnic lunch and just enjoyed a beautiful day together.  We really did have a nice time.  

 

Friday morning was Lauren's preschool field day.  I've now attending five of them in a row, and each year's event is an exact carbon copy of the year prior.  So you can imagine that I was less than thrilled about this one.  (Imagine how I'll feel when Mara gets to this stage!)  But I still had a great time playing with Lauren and getting to know her friends a little better.  She seemed to really enjoy all of the activities- mostly the face painting and the dress up station.  I know you're shocked.  She loved the parachute and potato sack races too.  We also ended with a picnic lunch in the gym where each child was given a medal.  Lauren wore hers proudly for the rest of the day.

 

Saturday evening, the kids got to play with Jen again, as we finally had a chance to go out to dinner at The Melting Pot in Harrisburg.  We had been planning it for months with some great friends, and were thrilled to have it all finally work out.  Only part of our group was able to go, but we didn't let that stop us.  We had a great time, ate some wonderful food and enjoyed a night out.  Jen brought a 2 for 1 babysitter deal as her boyfriend, Ben, was in town for a visit, and had asked us if we minded if he came along with her to play with the kids.  Since she has been sitting for us for so long and we trust her judgment, we said it was OK.  It seems to have been a great idea, because the kids keep talking about how much fun they had playing with Ben.  Apparently he is a huge sports fan (as is Jen) so you can imagine that Joshua had a blast!

 

And as if all of that wasn't enough fun, this morning was the nursery school field trip to T & D's Cats fo the World.  The special treat today was that Daddy was able to join us, so we were both excited about that.  The kids loved getting a chance to look at all of the animals, and I marvelled at the fact that people were dumb enough to think that a tiger or a lion would make a good pet.  Honestly.  Lauren had hoped to get to see monkeys, so she was thrilled at the whole set of monkey cages she got to spend time looking at.  I especially love her mean lion face in the picture below!

 

This week will be far less exciting, and for that I am grateful.  It's time to get back to some semblance of a normal schedule at the office, and get back into our normal routines.  I'm hoping I can actually remember what those normal routines are!

Weekend via iPhone

 

We spent our first wekeend of April doing some special things with the kids.  Libby, my mom and I had made plans for a "girls' day" in Hershey to take the girls to see Disney's Princesses on Ice.  The girls absolutely loved it.  I wish I would have captured a picture of Lauren's face when she saw Ariel skate out onto the ice.  Meeting Ariel was the highlight of her Disney trip last spring, and she still loves her.  Mara- although not known for sitting still- did a pretty good job of making it through the show with minimal scrooching and no fussing.  So on all accounts, it was a great morning.

After the show, we headed to the Outlets to let the kids pick out something special at the Disney Store.  But first, some tailgating for lunch.  I believe it was all of 30 degrees outside with a windchill of -5, but we ate our picnic lunch anyway.  The Richard Girls are not fair weather picnickers (how in the world do you spell that?).

 

While we were doing all things princessy- Joshua and Daddy were doing some book shopping and they picked out a new video game to play together.  They had a great day and I think both enjoyed a break from all of the estrogen that normally surrounds them.

 

After church on Sunday, while I worked in the kitchen, this is what Lauren did to the dining room.  Have mercy.

 

And Josh and Daddy headed to Bucknell for a little sports fair they were offering for kids to have a chance to get some experience with the players from different sports teams.  He absolutely loved the chance to meet some basketball players and play some basketball with them. 

And I'll leave you with this little gem.  No real description necessary.  Just Mara being Mara.

My posts got published out of order-- please don't miss the Easter post below.

Happy Easter....better late than never!

So I think we all know how this post is going to start....

 

It was a wonderful holiday weekend, but goodness were we busy!  It was one of those weekends where you wonder whether it would be inappropriate to take another weekend to recover from the weekend!

 

After celebrating Easter with both Lauren and Joshua's classes on Wednesday and Thursday last week, we got packed up and headed to my parents' house on Friday afternoon.  It had been quite a while since the kids had an overnight visit with Nana and Pap, so they were a little wound up about the idea of being there with them and a chance to play with Brooke and Hayden.  Needless to say, the playing was in full swing about 30 seconds after we arrived.



 

After some tormenting that Pap was doing to the kids about their stuffed friends, Joshua and Lauren concocted a plan to set up a "Pap Trap" on Saturday morning.  Cracked me up that Lauren was waiting outside of Pap's bedroom to trip him with that little dog on a leash, and then Joshua was prepared to jump out of the closet and wrap him up in a blanket.  Their 6' 2" Pap.  That would have been cute.  I did manage to convince them that it probably wasn't a good idea to trip him, and that they would quite likely LOSE in the battle to take him down.  But I think I'll forever laugh at this picture.

On Saturday afternoon, Nana had prepared an egg hunt for the kids, and they were more than ready!  We held them off for just a few minutes in order to try and take a few pictures.  I love this one of Libby and Hayden.  I swear I could just eat her right up.  Hayden, not Libby.  Although Lib's awfully cute too.

Getting five looking in the same direction was a little tricky.

And they're off!  (PS. Please don't miss Mara's ponytail!  That girl's hair is going to be the death of me, but I couldn't stop smiling about the little teeny ponytail.)

Pap was perched above the yard on the deck to supervise the action.

 

Mom and Dad cooked an absolutely delicious meal on Saturday night, and then we decided to head home so that we could go to our church on Sunday morning, as well as head to Jason's parents' house on Sunday afternoon to share dinner with them.  The kids were thrilled to wake up at home on Sunday morning to find some treats from the Easter Bunny.  Joshua has been really into reading lately- blazing through Magic Treehouse books by about one a day, so the Bunny took an opportunity to pick out some new books for the kids.  He was thrilled with his new Treehouse books and an Encyclopedia Brown book too.  Looks like we may have found our next obsession in the Encyclopedia Brown series.  The Bunny picked out some Fancy Nancy books for Lauren-- couldn't possibly be more perfect for our little Fancy Pants.  And Mara's obsession with Peppa Pig brought her a Peppa book that I have read to her no less than 8000 times since Sunday morning.  And candy.  Lots and lots of candy.  They're loving the special treats.

After church, we headed to Grandma and Grandpa's house to eat supper with them and Aunt Sheri and Jai.  Aunt Sheri had prepared another egg hunt for the kids, and they had a great time with that.  Dinner was delicious again--- I swear, I could eat Easter dinner once a week and not get sick of it.  Soooo good.  And surprisingly not too bad on the Weight Watcher points with some reasonable portion control.  I'm not saying I exercised good portion control, but it wouldn't have been too bad if I had even the slightest bit of self control.

 

We certainly were blessed with good family time this past weekend, and lots of good memories of time together.  I love Easter-- everything about it.  And I hope with these kinds of great family traditions, our children always will too.

Getting our tails kicked.

It hasn't been a good week. In fact, we have been under attack. A few weeks go I made a critical error and announced with some arrogance that we had been spared the wrath of our annual stomach virus.  Upon hearing these stupid words as they left my mouth, my friend said, "When will you learn just to be quietly grateful?"  Seriously. When will I learn?

In the days since, I have made three trips to Lewisburg Pediatrics.  Not for a stomach thing but for an ear infection for Josh, strep throat for both Lauren and Mara, and given the picture below we are looking pretty good for a trip tomorrow for Josh. There has been much puking over the last 12 hours and it is showing no signs of waning any time soon. 

This picture could have been interchangeable over the past week or so. Each child has had his or her turn. Mara mostly snuggled with me. But Lauren had a solid day on thr chair in between spells on my lap. And Josh has been back and forth between me and the chair.  

Mara has not taken well to the attention Joshua has been getting today- reverting to tears more times than I care to recall. And it is 12:00 pm. Long day ahead of us. And night I am afraid. 

Lauren, on the other hand, has been a gem. She busied herself all morning making this castle in the playroom. She keeps emerging to check on Josh, but seems wise to run away from the germs. 

Hopefully your weekend has looked NOTHING like ours. 

The Weekend in Pictures

Joshua's final Upward game of the season!  He had a lot of fun. 

Outside playtime always lifts our spirits. It was chilly, but that didn't keep us inside. We saw sunshine and decided to go for it. 

And these were from our special day to celebrate Grandma Shirley as we finally laid her ashes to rest.  It was her first birthday in Heaven, and we all were together to cap off what turned unexpectedly into the most difficukt 7 months our family has faced. Pap passed so suddenly on August 9th, and then Grandma's struggle began, ending in her passing on New Year's Day. Just so much for us all to soak in. But together- we did it just as they bkth would have expected us to-- as a family all together and with homemade ice cream. It was a very special day. 

2 years (+ 2.5 months)

You can tell Mara is our third child-- since her 2 year well checkup at the doctor's office was well past when it was actually her second birthday. In my defense, it's not like she hasn't had plenty of attention from the doctors in the past few months, what with her incessant ear infections and resulting complications from her antibiotics. I mean, really. 

But last week, Mara finally had her checkup. She was so much more charming than normal- usually she is screaming her guts out at the mention  of her name- and was jabbering like crazy to the nurse and the doctor. She measured 27 lb 3 oz (50th percentile) and was 37" long (96th percentile). Funny how out little midget who gave us such fits in the growth department is suddenly turning into the girl who won't be wearing high heels to her prom.  

The whole way through her appointment she was asking the doctor to check specific things. "Docor check Mara's heart?  Docor check Mara's ears?  Docor check Mara's beyee?"  It was sweet, and he declared that she is advnced verbally. And tbat made me laugh right out loud. I assured him that it wasn't something I would have expected to hear from him since all of her verbal development seems to have happened at warp speed over the past two months. 

Mara still is obsessed with all things baby related, and spends nearly all of her time taking care of her beloved purple baby. She rocks her, sings to her and dresses her up. She feeds her, gives her bottles and tucks her in at bedtime. I have said in recent months that it is a shame we didn't have her first because she would have been a big help with the other kids!

She is talking in multiple sentence thoughts at this point, and although it is still sometimes pretty choppy, she is getting her point across with pretty adorable personality these days. You can just tell how much less frustrated she is now that she can communicate a little better.  I think we are all relieved about that!

A Happy Weekend



We had a great weekend- lots of fun things going on.  I managed to do a better job than normal of catching at least a few of them on the camera!  And also decided to START the day with a blog post instead of waiting until the end of the day, since that always seems to roll around long before I've reached the end of the list of things that need to be done.  We'll see if I can get a streak rolling here under this new program.

 

Saturday morning we headed to Joshua's 6th Upward basketball game of the 8 game season.  Most of our Saturdays have been spent wrangling children, buying hot dogs and swedish fish at the concession stand and finding ways to pass the hour with Mara without her running off, disturbing the rest of the spectators, or having a fit.  This particular week was a special one, because Grandma, Aunt Sheri and Jai, and Gage came to watch Joshua play.  So with a few extra hands to occupy the girls, I was able to snap a few pictures.  Joshua has been having such a great time playing this year, and he really has made a lot of improvements.  He is dribbling much better, taking smarter shots and making a few baskets each week.  It's so much fun to watch him enjoy himself so much.  On most weeks, I also get a little bit of social time with Emily and their girls as well, so that's never a bad thing.

 

 

Saturday evening, Jason and I went to the annual banquet for the fire department where Jason has been volunteering for the past 8 months or so, and had a nice time.  I was so proud of him when he was named the Rookie of the Year for the department!  He's donated a lot of time for training and classes he has needed to take, as well as for the few calls there have been in recent months, so I was glad to see him be recognized for the time he has volunteered.  And it was really nice for me to get to meet some of the guys that he has been talking about working with.

We muddled through the whole "spring forward" disaster on Saturday night, and all of us woke up grouchy and tired on Sunday morning.  I opted to let the bad attitudes resolve themselves at home rather than in front of an audience at Sunday School, and we went just for church this week.  I think that proved the right choice.  All three kids woke up on the wrong side of the bed for sure.  I'm convinced that the people responsible for Daylight Savings Time do not have small children.

We pushed through our Sunday afternoon with a special visit from my parents.  The kids were thrilled to have Nana and Pap come to see them.  Mara was especially outgoing with them- she always seems to be more so in our house rather than at theirs, but her very quickly growing vocabulary has given her a lot more confidence to say what she wants to say.  I honestly don't think she stopped jabbering the whole time they were there.  She's starting to now string two or three sentences together-- they're choppy, but if you pay close attention you can totally get what she's saying.  I think Mom and Dad got a kick out of her.  She certainly isn't lacking in the personality department, that's for sure.

After Mom and Dad left, we all decided that we were going to celebrate spring, whether it is here or not.  When the temperature hit 38 on Saturday afternoon, I said to Jason that I thought we should bag the plan I had for dinner on Sunday night and get some steaks to grill.  So I made a trip to Byerly's and we had a delicious steak dinner last night with some homemade apple crisp.  Oh how it made me ready for warm nights of grilling and being outside.  The kids spent the afternoon running around in the driveway playing basketball and writing with sidewalk chalk.  I think the fresh air did them all a lot of good.  But Mara quickly crashed when we came back inside.  I wouldn't normally encourage a nap at 4:00 in the afternoon, but she couldn't help herself and slept from then until it was time for dinner.  Because she was all wacked out by Daylight Savings Time, she didn't have any trouble falling asleep at bedtime (nor did I as I rocked MYSELF to sleep from about 9:00-11:00 in her room last night).

In other news, I was thrilled in the past few weeks to have reached my 40 pound weight loss goal.  When I really started working on this in January 2013, my goal was to lost 40 by the time we left for Disney World LAST MAY.  Needless to say, it's been a bit more of a project than that.  But about two weeks ago, I finally saw that goal to completion and can start to focus on getting to the final goal I have-- only about 19 pounds to go.  I was thrilled on Saturday morning to finally fit into a pair of jeans that I haven't been able to get into since before I got pregnant with Joshua.  This highlights a few things--- 1. Wow, I haven't cleaned out my drawers in a long time!  and 2. I'm a hopeful person.  I KNEW I'd get back there eventually!  It felt great to comfortably wear those jeans.  Everyone else probably thought I was just way out of style in my 2006 jeans, but it was a moment of pride for me.  Sadly that steak dinner and apple crisp probably set me back a bit, but life goes on.  And since I don't weigh in until Friday morning again, hopefully I'll be able to undo any damage by then!

And just for fun, here are my two favorite girls from this morning before I took Lauren to school.  So sweet- both of them.

Camera Dump

I feel like I should start this post with a disclaimer, so here goes.  I have no idea where I'm going with this post.  This is what happens when I go weeks in between posts.  I am at the mercy of my camera and whatever things might happen to be captured therein.  And then, when I start to write about what I find there, it's hard to tell which rabbit trail I'm going to get going down.  So brace yourselves.

 

For the dead of winter, I honestly expect to be more bored than we are.  You know, the winter dread of just being stuck at home, wanting desperately to get out and do something.  But there has been no such cabin fever for us lately.  I feel like we're spinning at an even more feverish pace than normal.  And folks, that's not good.  Thankfully, although we've had a tough winter with little annoying snow storms, there haven't been too many big ones that have slowed us down or wrecked any major plans.

 



 

On Friday the 24th, Jason and I got to spend the morning observing Lauren's nursery school class.  While the big kids do their parent visitation day in one big (chaotic) mess early in the year, the preschool classes do it in a more organized fashion, assigning one or two sets of parents to attend class with their child later in the year.  This apparently helps with separation anxiety issues and crowd control issues.  And let's face it, with 3 and 4 year olds, anything you can do to mitigate those two problems is well worth it.  So it was just us and one other set of parents, and we got a chance to watch Lauren in action.  She was so proud of herself, and so happy that we were there.  I left with a great appreciation for how well she's doing, how kind she is to the other kids, and how much of a saint her teachers are to do the things that they do every day.

I could probably do a whole post about this fire truck tent and the millions and millions of things it has been over the years that we've owned it.  If I were smarter, I would link back to some pictures of the kids doing things with it.  But lately it has been making it's appearance over and over and over again.  On this particular day, Mara had turned it into her own little home for her babies.  Mara's obsession with her baby dolls is really something to see.  She wakes up looking for "purple baby" and plays with her for the majority of the day and night.  She gives her tubs, walks her around in the stroller, feeds her, changes her and wraps her up over and over again in her blanket.  It makes me so excited to see her as a Mom herself one day.  She's so maternal, and so caring.  (Seems odd to say given her intense nature, but she is so loving and sweet to her baby dolls.)

 Joshua's favorite time of the year has finally come--- BASKETBALL!  He has been so excited to get back to playing again, especially after practicing literally for hours on end all spring/summer/fall at home.  Josh has been doing pretty well, and the improvement since the beginning of last season is remarkable.  It's still tough for kids this age to work together as a team, so there is a whole lot of dribbling and shooting by one person rather than passing to teammates in any kind of an organized fashion, but it's still fun to watch.  Joshua has made a few baskets in each of his games so far, and his dribbling has really improved.  Jason is coaching his team again this year, and seems to be having a great time sharing this with Joshua again.  The girls and I love watching the games on Saturdays--- well, I do.  Lauren and Mara mostly like getting a snack from the concession stand and making a complete mess of the stage area while the game is going on.

Here we are with the baby again.  This time, she was showing Daddy how she helps her purple baby go to sleep.  I'm telling you.  All. Day. Long.

The last few weeks of January, Jason has been taking a course for his Haz Mat certification for the fire department during quite a few evenings.  It's forced the kids and I to get pretty creative with our evening time, which is typically the most challenging of the day.  On one night, the kids got really excited about having a movie night and quickly got into their pajamas and toted their sleeping bags downstairs.  We made popcorn and had a relatively calm night.  And this mama counts it a success.  Needless to say, we're thrilled that Daddy's all done with that class and that our long nights without him are done at least for now.

And we're back to the baby.  I took this picture to send to my Mom because I thought it was funny that Mara carries purple baby around in a Longaberger basket.  I'm pretty sure that's not its intended use, but it works for Mara and it works for Purple Baby.  And I guess that's all that matters.

 

 

And that's the end of the camera dump for today.  If the past is any kind of a predictor of the future, we'll meet here again for the same kind of post in a week or so.  Or longer than that.  I always have such a good intentions and then life gets nuts.

 

See you all soon!