Squeezing it all in...

I guess you could read that title to mean a bunch of things.  Like..."squeezing it all in to one weekend", or emptying the camera and "squeezing it all into one blog post".  I think it may also refer to what it's going to look like later this week as we pack to get ready for our trip to the lodge with my family.  I'm willing to bet we'll be "squeezing it all in" literally as we pack up everything this troop is going to require for a week in isolation from the rest of the free world.

 

Regardless, it has been a busy few days for us.  I held true to my promise of trying to get out of the office one afternoon each week during the summer and picked Joshua and Lauren up Friday afternoon to head to the movies to see Monsters University.  What a cute movie it was!  And I swear, I had the most adorable dates that afternoon, donning their 3D glasses.  It was Lauren's first time to see a movie in the theater, and I was proud of her for not getting scroochy until the movie was almost over.  We felt a bit like criminals smuggling in our peanut safe snacks, but I was grateful that the kids didn't seem to mind eating their popcorn out of a ziploc baggie.

 

Saturday was an at home day for me as I was preparing for a little picnic that evening with the Knepleys.  We were thrilled to have picked one of the hottest days of the summer so far.  Yeah right.  Their new baby, Mason, is only a month old, so it was great fun to have a little little one in the house.  Their almost three year old, Miller, jumped right in with our big kids and was running all over the place despite the sweltering heat.  We ate too much, drank some wine and shared some good laughs about how quickly our lives have changed from our wedding days until now- with five little kids between the two couples.  As is the case with most fun times, I neglected to get out my camera.  But having to hold it might have hindered my ability to enjoy that glass of wine.  So I'm glad I didn't have to worry about that.  :-)

 

Sunday we had all good intentions of getting up for Sunday School, but I knew I was defeated as soon as the alarm went off and I couldn't convince myself to get out of bed.  Too much fun on Saturday night I guess.  I did, however, consider it a victory that I talked myself out of skipping church altogether, and the kids and I headed for church and made it there on time for the service.  As is usual, I ended up in the nursery with Mara while the big kids were in Wee Worship, but it was OK.  She is starting to learn how to behave through the first 15-20 minutes of church now that we're out there with Joshua and Lauren too, so that's a good thing.  She has her moments, and more often than not, I end up sweating as I try to keep her occupied and quiet (quiet is the issue without a doubt), but we're getting there.

 

I am noticing so much development happening with Mara these last few days really, that I started snapping pictures of some of her new skills.  I feel like she has been a little slower at picking things up than the other two were, but I don't completely trust my memory on that either.  Things have gotten awfully fuzzy in my memory since Mara came along.

 



 

 

 She is working diligently to pick up food and get it to her mouth using her fork.  She has been "using" utensils for a few months, but I've been noticing in the past week or so that she is doing so with greater accuracy lately.  As in, far more ends up in her mouth than on the floor.

 

Anyone who has been within ear shot of me in the past few months has certainly known that I have been increasingly concerned about Mara's lack of vocabulary.  We have no trouble figuring out what she wants or is trying to say, and so many people have told me not to worry and that she will find her words in her own time.  I have to tell you, though, as we near her 18 month checkup in a few weeks, I feel like I have a test that I didn't study for, because they're going to ask me about her words and I'm going to have to tell them that she can't say anything besides "mama" and "dada" and "eh", with the latter being her go-to for everything.  Well, after she downed her Oreo cookie the other night and was a complete and utter mess from the chin up, I grabbed my camera to take her picture.  To which she smiled and said, "eeeeeeeeeeese".  I nearly fell over.  In the days since, I have caught her saying "no", "up", "bubbles", "Bible" (when we're singing the B-I-B-L-E), "Nana", "Pap-Pap" and a few others.  So, all of a sudden, it seems to be picking up.  Here's where the fuzzy brain comes in again-- I know that the other kids started putting words together around this time, I just don't know exactly when.  So, it looks like we have some talking to look forward to soon from Miss Mara!

Books and puzzles are Mara's new found favorite.  I do distinctly remember Josh and Lauren being seriously into books around this same age, and it seems that Mara will follow in their footsteps.  We have been doing a whole lot of reading in recent days, with her favorites being Brown Bear, I Love You Through and Through, No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, her big word book and her Mickey Mouse lift the flap book.   Where's Spot continues to be a favorite, although all three copies that we have are now missing their flaps where she got a little excited to find the animals hiding beneath them.   I loved this picture of Lauren reading to her on Saturday morning.  Lauren is such a good big sister most of the time.  She adores Mara and I can just see the kind of relationship they are going to have down the road.  What a blessing!

 These were a few pictures of our crazy kids on Sunday afternoon who insisted, despite our urging, to be outside playing in the 100 degree heat.  Honestly.  But the last two pictures highlight Mara's newest ability to climb up onto things.  Little Miss Independent.  The big kids were sitting at the table eating a little snack and she was not going to be outdone.3

 

So that's the latest from this little corner of the world.  See you soon!

More of this.

I didn't have a lot of goals for this summer.  No particular manner I intended to go about filling the next couple of months with things to do.  But I can tell you this much-- we're having a pretty good one so far.  I am loving the fact that we aren't scheduled to the hilt.  We've been making plans for fun things to do on the fly, something that doesn't usually happen with us.  So far we seem to be focusing on doing things together as much as possible, and spending less time than normal going in separate directions to accomplish things.  And while it isn't always efficient to drag the kids to Sams Club or to pack up the whole family for a quick run to Target, I have been appreciating doing it together.

 

Admittedly, summer time is the time that I feel most guilty for being a working Mom.  There are so many things to do with the kids that I always feel bad leaving them during the day.  I think back to the gift that it was to have my mom home with us during the summers.  That teaching gig certainly had its benefits for the teacher's kids!  I am becoming more aware of it because Joshua is becoming more aware in recent days.  Last night, we were watching a movie about George H. W. Bush and talking to Joshua about what kinds of things he is going to do when he is President.  His answer... "I'm going to make it so that no matter whether you're a man or a woman, you get the summer off from your job."  Ouch.  Straight to the heart of working parents who are already hating leaving the kids behind at home for the summer months.

 

Joshua is absolutely loving spending time with his Daddy this summer.  No sooner does Jason get in the door, and Joshua is asking him to make all of their plans for the evening.  I swear, he must be planning all day long about the things he wants to do.  It usually involves basketball or playing Super Mario Brothers.  But this past weekend, the boys got a chance to go fishing, and they caught their very first fish together!  They were both pretty excited.  The girls and I stayed at home where I was working on jobs at the house- cooking, cleaning and laundry.  Surprise surprise.  I've been admittedly having a very hard time lately with the amount of things that Joshua is dying to do that don't involve me.  I can only describe it as the fact that I am missing spending time with him.  So I'm going to have to do something to fix that.  Last weekend the girls and I accompanied Josh and Jason to the lake where they were fishing, and that was fun, but the girls definitely make it hard for me to focus on Josh.  I guess I'm just having a little bit of a hard time with the stage we are in right now with Mara in particular- where I am the only one who can occupy her and keep her happy, making it nigh upon impossible for me to be doing the things that I want to be able to do with Joshua and Lauren.

 

Despite the struggles of having kids at the ages we have, I will say we are doing a good job of focusing just on the kids when we can.  We're spending lots of time outside blowing bubbles and taking walks and riding bikes.  

 

We're eating lots of watermelon and fresh strawberries, which I think is making the kids extra sweet.

We're loving watching Mara dig in the sandbox.  Talk about an investment of $50 that we have seen pay for itself over and over and over throughout three children!

And we've had lots of giggles about the kids making funny faces-- like this one!  Mara has learned how to roll her eyes--- in my estimation, this was perhaps not something we should have taught this little girl.  Something tells me she isn't going to need any help in the "attitude" department over the next few years.  But for now, we all got quite a laugh out of her. 

I think, if we can keep focusing on doing more of these things, and less of the things that aren't important, we're going to continue having a very good summer full of fun memories together. 

Just a glimpse.

I've been missing blogging lately.  I have been doing a lot of writing privately, mostly coupled with my devotions and Bible study while working on some personal things, and have been remembering just how therapeutic and rewarding it is for me to put pen to paper.  I think that's why blogging has always been such a rewarding hobby for me-- because of the union of writing combined with my family is the stuff perfection is made of.  Except that I write about the imperfection, and unconditional love of it all.  Ironic.

 

My posts have been full of photo evidence of the big stuff lately- Joshua's graduation and our family trip to Disney World.  But that isn't the real stuff of our every day lives.  So that's what I pulled in for today.  And I figured it may be time for a quick update on the not-so-exciting, but oh-so-real happenings in our world.

 

 

This photo requires a little explanation.  First, let me say that I am beside myself because there is now a Blogger iPad app.  It has probably been available for the rest of the free world for months, but I just learned about it today, so we'll pretend that it's a brand spankin' new piece of life changing technology.  Oh happy day.  I know I got excited when the iPhone version came out, but this has me much more excited.  So, when I launched the app this morning, I pulled up a few pictures from my photo roll on the iPad and landed on this gem from the plane ride home from Disney.  I really wish Lauren would just show a little personality.

 

The following two are from this morning's play time right before I left for the office.  Lauren was dressed as a police officer- but I had to laugh at the pirate earring she was wearing as well as the 3D glasses that Joshua insisted on bringing home from the movie theater when he went to see Iron Man 3 with Jason.  Just about every morning, the kids head straight for the costume box and get dressed up as something, as if their need to pretend is just too much to even wait until breakfast is over.  It's so fun to watch.

 

 

 

I feel the need to comment on Joshua's photo too.  Bless his heart, he moved this "office" set up at least three times before I left this morning.  He is constantly in search of a spot, anyhwere in the house, where the girls won't get into his things.  He and Lauren were actually playing very nicely this morning, but as soon as I walked down the steps holding Mara, Joshua's response was, "Oh nuts.  I forgot about her."  And he immediately began searching for higher ground that Mara couldn't get to.  Please take note, also, of the meticulous set up for his office gear.  Everything is placed in a very specific spot, lined up in accordance with the lines on his boxes so that things are centered and neat.  This poor apple did not fall far from either of the trees from whence he came.

 

Not much to say about Mara today other than that you can rest assured that she is very busy getting into mischief.  She has learned how to climb up on things in the past week or so and now can be found higher than where you left her if you make the mistake of taking your eye off of her.  This generally isn't a problem until she tumbles off of the summit of whatever mountain she has scaled.  She is trying with great intensity to get some words out, although we haven't gotten much that we can make out yet.  I know it's coming, and honestly, I can't wait to hear what she has to say once she figures it out.  Remind me that I said that when I'm wishing otherwise.

The Dugans Take Disney World

I have the distinct feeling, as I sit down to  write this, that this could be one of those blog posts that  ends up going on for ages.  Because let's face it, and use past history as a judge...if I can ramble on incessantly about a weekend full of trips to Target, putting away laundry and cooking for the family, I will surely go off the deep end with a major vacation like Disney World.  So, for all of our sakes, I'm going to attempt to boil this down into a reasonable list of highlights.  You can thank me later.

 

 

For starters, our air travel was pretty uneventful, considering the crowd we were lugging around.  I will say that the iPads and the kids' DS'es (how do you make that plural?) were life savers.  We also had plenty of snacks and the like to occupy them on the flight and in the airport.  We stayed the night before our flight at the hotel that is attached to the Philadelphia Airport.  This turned out to be a very good call and avoided early morning travel that would have done nothing but put everyone into a bad mood.  We arrived and made good use of the Magical Express that picks you up at the airport and transports you directly to your resort.  My absolute favorite part of that exercise is the fact that you don't have to get your luggage at the airport.  It "magically" arrives in your room later.  Luckily we had enough supplies with us to not waste any time in hitting the parks as soon as we landed.

 

 

We  spent much of our time at the Magic Kingdom because that's where the kids wanted to be.  Crowds were manageable, temperatures were only a fraction  of where they are headed in the Florida summertime, and the parks were just as magical as I remembered them being.  We were lucky enough to be able to  catch the parade in the Magic Kingdom our first night, something I hadn't banked on being able to do, but it was fun.  Lauren fell asleep JUST before it began, but Joshua really enjoyed getting his first peek at Mickey Mouse, and his spotting of Captain Hook!  Well worth it, in my opinion.

 

We were able to do some swimming one afternoon at our resort.  The pool there was absolutely gorgeous, and provided a great spot to unwind from two days at the parks.  The kids seemed to really enjoy  themselves.  Joshua and Lauren are both showing some improvement in their swimming skills.  And given the fact that squeezing time into our schedules for formal lessons seems unlikely, I was really pleased to see them enjoying the water and the waterslide at the hotel without needing to be held or caught at the bottom.

 

 One of my highlights of the trip was our trip to Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary Resort on Tuesday morning for a character breakfast.  It was amazing to be able to meet the characters up close, get pictures and autographs, and just have some fun with them without having to stand in the heat in a long line.  As you can imagine, if there were any times that the wheels fell off for our crew, it was in long lines and heat.  So we avoided them both as much as possible.

Also on my list of favorite activities was the Disney Junior show at Hollywood Studios.  The girls absolutely loved it.  And even though Joshua is starting to get too big and too grown up to admit enjoying the likes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Doc  McStuffins, Sofia the First and Jake and the Neverland Pirates, even he enjoyed the show.  The girls cracked me up- dancing, singing along, and clapping like crazy when a character they love showed up on stage.

That evening, we ate dinner at the 50's Prime Time Café- sort of like going to dinner with Leave It To Beaver.  Each table has a mom who makes you set the table, eat your veggies, and mind your manners.  Joshua immediately hit it off with our "mom" and ended up telling her all sorts of jokes and showing her his knowledge of the Presidents.  She was obviously smitten with him, and kept bringing her other waitress friends over to meet her new buddy.  It was great.

This seems a great time to highlight the amazing service we got at every restaurant we ate at with reference to Joshua's allergy.  Every time we sat down, our reservation was flagged with our allergy needs.  Within  minutes, the chef was at our table going over the menu with us and telling us what would be safe choices for Joshua.  Then, each of his meals was specially prepared and brought to him.  We were even able to eat off of a buffet at one of the restaurants, which is nearly unheard of with a severe food allergy.  Disney certainly lived up to its reputation of being a tremendously food allergy friendly resort.  Even all of the snack food was either clearly labeled, or the vendors were able to show us the allergy binder that listed all ingredients and possible cross contaminants.  For a family like us who struggles to find safe places to go/eat, this was a real relief to us and took a lot of the stress out of the vacation for Jason and me.

A high point for Joshua was most definitely the Hall of Presidents in the Magic Kingdom.  I absolutely loved watching his face light up as each of the Presidents was introduced.  We had to laugh because the  show had hardly anyone in it- and our children were certainly the only ones.  The girls were not interested, but it was worth their scrooching just to watch Joshua enjoy himself.

Wednesday was definitely a tough day for the girls in the parks.  Given the fact they both got sick as soon as we got home, I now realize that that probably had something to do with their lack of patience and likelihood to burst into hysterics at the drop of a hat.  But Lauren did get to meet some princesses and get her picture taken with them, which she seemed to enjoy.

That afternoon, the girls and I headed back to the Wilderness Lodge to rest while Daddy and Josh rode some bigger rides.  That day was special for Joshua because Daddy took him to get made up like a pirate.  He really seemed to like that.  Somehow we missed a picture of that on the big camera, although I do have one on my phone that I'll have to see if I can upload.  Our strategy to divide and conquer wasn't what we had intended to do, but when the girls were melting down, we saw no good reason to penalize Josh, so it just worked better to let him have some special time with Daddy while the girls decompressed a bit.

After a long day of travel on the way home starting at 6:45 am and ending at 5:15 when we pulled into our driveway, we were all glad to be home with lots of memories to cherish from this trip.  I absolutely loved the family time together without interruptions.  Although this trip was a lot of work for Jason and me to coordinate and plan for and work to make happen, it was well worth it in our opinions.  The kids had a blast, and so did we.

See you in a few years, Disney!

A Kindergarten Graduate

I wish I had more time to fill in the details of Joshua's Kindergarten graduation last night.  But given the fact that our Disney trip begins tomorrow afternoon and I still haven't finished packing (not even close), I had better be sparse with my words. Suffice it to say that we were beyond proud of Joshua in his performance last night, just like we always are.

 

Tent City

I had to laugh last evening as I stood in the kitchen preparing supper, as the kids were all giggling about the fun they were having in their tents.  Joshua had pulled his Spider Man tent (the gift that keeps on giving, Aunt Libby!) to the landing and had constructed quite a campsite up there.  Bless his heart, he always takes the tent to the landing because Mara isn't allowed to play up there, and he knows that I watch her like a hawk to make sure she doesn't climb the stairs!  The girls wouldn't be outdone and asked for the fire truck tent to be brought up from the basement so that they could have a tent too.  So we had our own little tent city.  But it kept them occupied and happy while I was making our spaghetti and meatballs, and really, what more can a mom ask for at 5:00 after a long day at work?

I am noticing a really sweet relationship developing between Lauren and Mara.  Frankly, I think Lauren is sick of Joshua bossing her around.  So she has moved on to greener pastures.  I love seeing the girls playing happily together.  I know there will be rocky days....like from about age 12 to 18 or so....when they would rather take a beating than be together, but my prayer is that they'll be the kind of sisters who are always there for each other.



 Mara was so happy about playing in the tent that I couldn't even get her to stop for a smile!

I love this big boy....getting bigger by the day it seems right now.  I am still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that he is finished with kindergarten next week.  Just where did that year go?

We have a huge weekend planned.  Today, Joshua is hosting his friend, Luke, for a play day at our house.  He has been begging for this since the beginning of the school year and I was running out of time to keep my promise.  Now hopefully, amidst their excitement, they will hold up their end of the bargain by not ripping the house to shreds.

Tomorrow morning, the girls and I are headed for Lewistown for our (sort of) annual Cousins Day fun!  I cannot wait to see everyone.  This serves as a great little get together since we don't see everyone much anymore except for Christmas time.  So, this gives all of us a chance to be together, and for our kids to play together.  I'm so happy. 

Then, tomorrow evening, Mom and all of the girls (all 7....4 of whom are 4 and under!) will be gussied up to head to the Mother/Daughter banquet at the church.  Let's just hope we can avoid creating a scene at the dinner table with little people who prefer not to sit still.  I'm hoping to make the trip back home on Saturday night provided I can keep my eyes open.  I'm betting two little ladies will be fast asleep in the backseat after a long day of playing, but that's OK.

And then Sunday we'll head to church and hopefully get some great family time in the afternoon to celebrate Mother's Day.  There's nothing I'd rather do than be with Jason and the kids on Sunday, so who knows what we'll get into, but I'm sure it will be wonderful.