Things that might make a mom crazy...

Most, if not all, of my days as a mom are absolutely lovely! But, there are a few things that maybe, sort of, make me CRAZY!!! Maybe you can relate?


10) Trying to help a 3 year old get gloves on; how many pointer fingers do they have exactly?


9) Putting pigtails in a squirming 1 year old so she can actually see past all of that curly hair.


8) Making dinner while the 3 year old is hollering to be wiped on the toliet, and the 1 year old has a death grip on the space between your legs, while crying.


7) Drinking cold coffee or even scorched on some days, when it has been sitting FOREVER in the cup/pot just begging to be drank!


6) Trying to teach a child to actually blow the snot out of their nose, inevitably wasting hundreds of tissues.

5) Opening the washer to find those hundreds of tissues, from my unemptied pockets, spewn across every piece of clean laundry.

4) The stupid super strength velcro on bibs that always manages to find my favorite sweater or shirt to adhere to in the dryer.

3) Drive by 'snot-ings' (when one of the kids walks/crawls a little too close, and leaves a huge smear of snot across my clothes) always on the days that I actually have real clothes and not mom wear on - a.k.a. yoga/pajama pants.


2) Getting woken up at 3 a.m. to remove the imaginary animals from the 3 year old's bed.


1) Being a hunter's widow with two small children over a long, cold, windy, rainy opening hunting weekend when they each have the sniffles (refer back to # 6, and #5, and definitely #3)!


Ha! You know I love them and this crazy thing called motherhood, but they do make me laugh a lot, and maybe, just maybe, I get a little crazy sometimes too!

So this is what you do when you are three!

As a newbie to the three year old world, Hadley has been doing a lot of new things since her birthday - starting with sleeping in a big girl bed!  So far so good...

Staying up late to watch Milo and Otis as a special part of her birthday. (We only made it halfway through, as the owl was apparently too scary - oooo!  She thought she might like it better when she was "even older!")

Wearing jeans (she has previously HATED them, but has slightly warmed to the idea since there are pink hearts on the pockets - good job, Auntie Kara!)

Going on a "lunch meeting", as she put it, with Daddy on her birthday.

Chewing gum (only 1 piece has made it back into the trash can thus far).

Sharing with her sister - well, sort of.  It is hard to share your new toys, especially when Piper seems to like the dollhouse nearly as much!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Hadley!

Hadley B, is three!

Our Dream Come True

So, "our dream come true" turns 3 tomorrow. Can you believe it? Our Hadley is stepping, or twirling more like it, out of the toddler realm and into the preschool gang. It is hard to believe that it has been three years with this happy little thing! The little thing that we anguished over for so many years prior, and then were suddenly blessed with her presence (on opening hunting day, no less).

Look at that teeny five pounder with fluffy black hair! Who would have guessed she'd be a tall little blondie now?

As a speech therapist, I have worked with a lot of 3 year olds, but there is something particularly funny when it is your own chatting at you each day (ALL day long!). Here are a few of my favorite Hadley-isms from the past 6 months or so...

"Coot" = cute (She often tells me that Piper is coot!)
"Regot" = forgot
"Talater" = tomorrow, or later
"Momza" = a nickname for me
"Massage" = a saw
"Wah?" = why (she's apparently from the South!)
"Pah" = pie (that Southern belle)
"Moo iks" = music (I like how its plural!)
"Ta deado" = together
"Eee chadeeo" = each other
265 = number of questions she asks in a day (mostly wah :)

We love this little thing, and can't wait to celebrate her 3rd birthday tomorrow! Here are a few pictures from her birthday party this past weekend. (Here are 6 of the 8 party friends.)

What a suprise - while the other kids were done with lunch and off running around, Hadley was still eating away!

Hadley later told me that the sprinkles were her favorite, that they were "Ooooo, so good".

Hammer

We had two very special visitors this weekend.  Grandma and Grandpa from Minnesota, as Hadley would say, came to help celebrate her birthday a few days early.  We had a grand time playing, eating, laughing, and opening a few birthday presents too!  Hadley's favorite gift was a wedding set (seen below) that she could not seem to get enough of.  We even heard her singing "Here comes the groom" after we tucked her in last night. (No thanks to her Daddy's version of the song: Her comes the bride, all happy inside.  Here comes the groom, all filled with gloom!)  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa, we SO appreciate the special visit - We love you!

There is a looooong standing tradition regarding the secrecy of gifts in my family.  A 30 year tradition in fact, beginning when I was just two years old.  If someone asks what you got them, the response is always a hammer (over the years it has really grown in humor and sarcasm).  I started using this idea with Hadley a couple weeks back when it was Kyle's birthday.  She carefully helped me wrap his gifts, and then with a grin, she told him he was getting hammers.  I was impressed that she was able to hold the secret of his gifts so well.  But just yesterday, packages arrived for Hadley from Auntie Kara and Auntie Kim.  She looked at them ever so carefully, and then said with all the seriousness and sadness of the world, "Its going to be a hammer, isn't it?"  After a good laugh, I assured her that it probably wasn't, but that we could open them right now to find out.  Much to her relief and delight she found a darling coat set, hip jeans and top, and a Dr.Suess book.  Thanks, Aunt Kara and Aunt Kim - We love you!

Shopping Fun

Piper let out her inner woman this past week. She discovered that she LOVES to "sha" (shop!) with our little cart (thanks to Oma and Opa for the cart). She has even come out of the playroom pushing it and wearing a little purse and bracelet on her wrist! Hadley and I dressed her up in a "ta" (twirling dress) to help her play the part a bit better, and she was so excited she could hardly stand it (thanks to cousin, Ava, for the darling Gap ensemble).

Hadley - not wanting Piper to have all the fun, insisted on wearing her (bit too small) flowergirl dress from Uncle Nathan and Auntie Heidi's wedding.

And, one of our many snuggle sessions each day (as I seem to be missing from any blog pictures just yet). Lucky am I!

Also, a very special congratulations to my brother, Mike, and his wife, Jill, as they welcomed their 3rd little sweetie into the world just last night!  Kyle and I are the very proud godparents of, Savannah Kate, all 9 pounds 12 ounces of her! 

Peas

So, I may have previously mentioned that we have a pea fiend living at our house. Yes, the green kind that come from pods (and I have to admit, are a little bit gross to me). In this case, straight from the freezer! Piper LOVES them, and cannot seem to get enough of them each and every day. I have started adding a little bit of corn, mostly because it makes me laugh when she asks for it, along with the peas... take a look.

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We celebrated Kyle's birthday on Sunday (which he kids me is so appropriate, as it is Saint's Day!).  The girls had a great time decorating the house, wrapping and coloring on his presents, and even eating some cheesecake with him! The only bummer was that his beloved Packers couldn't overtake Favre and the Vikings.

This was the best part of the day - playing with Daddy! He really is such an awesome dad. They just hoot and holler everytime he arrives home. Their little faces aglow with the promise of getting to play with Dad soon. This is one of their favorites - laundry basket rides; Daddy style: fast and wild!

Kyle's birthday would not be complete unless he gets pulled over for speeding!  Seriously.  Since getting his license at 16, he has been pulled over FOUR times on his birthday!  That is nearly a quarter of all his birthdays since!  Thankfully, the officer has been kind to this speedy saint every time, and has let him off with just a warning!  (On our way to our birthday destination, Hadley did holler from the back "Slow down, Daddy!"  It was a bit of an ominous foreshadowing, I think :).

Halloween

The girls had a grand time wearing their costumes this year!  Both were truly tickled to be in their wild animal gear.  We were also joined by our good friends Mandi and Randy's little guy, Blake.  He was a darling addition to our brood that night.

Hadley B the panda bear! A special thanks to my mom (and my brother, Michael) as the head and paws are circa 1987ish, made lovingly by my mother for an 8 year old panda fanatic!

Piper Lu the lion! 

So, you wonder, what happens to the candy at the Anderson house?  What a great question, as you all know that my husband is what we lovingly call the health food guru (aka the food nazi, ha) around here.  It just so happens that we went to a new dentist last week, and they sponsored a special Halloween event last night.  Bring in all of your candy, and for each pound your child can get a dollar. The candy is then shipped over to our hardworking troops in Iraq!  (Don't worry, we did let Hadley try two pieces on Halloween night, and even Piper tried a bit of a lollipop.)  Hadley was thrilled with the two dollars she earned at the dentist (I'm sure she's dreaming of how many plums that will buy her.  For the love!)  But our exciting news came this morning.  The girl's names were entered in a few drawings at the dentist office, and Piper won a brand new bike!  One that will take even Hadley a couple years to grow into, but she is SO excited! 

Jack-o-lanterns!

We began our Halloween festivities Friday evening, as we all four attempted to carve our jack-o-lanterns.

Hadley really enjoyed herself this year,  and didn't seem to mind any of the slimy pulp inside.

Piper on the other hand, made terrible faces anytime we tried to get her to touch the insides, and... when she finally became completely fed up with it all, she uttered her very first "no no" while vehemently shaking her head!