She Eats

Little Miss Elise is 6 months old.  I finally broke down and started feeding her rice cereal and bananas.  Oh the messiness that is a baby learning how to eat.  She loves to eat.  The big kids now fight to sit next to her highchair at dinner.  And the best part about feeding her solids at lunchtime is that she is now sleeping for 3 hours in the afternoon. 
Oh how I love this little one.  If only she could stay a baby forever. 

Summer is here!!!!  It's time for lots of swimming, playing, sleeping in, and snuggling our cute little Bunny. 

I love "june gloom"  The days start out kind of foggy and then by the afternoon it is nice and sunny and warm, not HOT.  I hate the heat.  Good thing it doesn't usually get over about 85 degrees in these parts.  I love eating dinner outdoors on long summer days.  Here, Mike is enjoying raspberry/peach cobbler for dinner, something I do every summer a few times.  Who doesn't want

dessert for dinner

Julia had her first dance recital a few weeks ago.  She is the "monkey" in the middle. 

pictures pictures pictures

Elise Jewell Adams

March 30, 2012

10 lbs 1 oz

21 inches

A big thank you to my friend Jen of Big Red Barn Photography for giving me the gift of newborn pictures of Elise.  I am absolutely in love with Elise and am so happy to have these pictues.  There really is nothing comparable to holding a sweet little baby in my arms and knowing that she is mine.

Grateful

I feel so very blessed.

A few days ago my first "baby" turned 7. 

Tomorrow my third "baby" turns 3.

And my littlest baby is now 3 weeks old. 

How did I get so lucky?

I am overcome with gratitude for these 4 little people in my life and for a very wonderful and kind husband and for amazing friends.  I can not even express the gratitude I feel for the service that has been rendered to our family these past few weeks.  We have had dinners brought in, treats and bread delivered to us, many visits, lots of playdates for the kids, kind phone calls, carpools driven, professional photographs given, and the list could go on and on. My friend Rebecca even surprised me before Elise was born by watching my kids for a whole day so Mike and I could spend time together.  I have been able to take naps and snuggle with my sweet little Elise while my children have played happily at friends' homes.  What a treat it has been for me to spend so much quality time with my new baby.   My good friend Becky even made and decorated the cakes for Blake and Cole's birthdays. (see pictures below-aren't they awesome)  I have to say that I have the most wonderful group of friends EVER.  So thank you all my friends from the bottom of my heart for making this transition from 3-4 kids so wonderful.  I am truly humbled by your service to me and my family.  I hope you all know how much I appreciate your thoughtful and kind acts of service. 

The end!!

Welcome Elise Jewell

Our sweet new baby girl , Elise Jewell, was born on march 30. I had asked my doctor to induce me a week early to try and avoid a big baby, but alas she only consented to inducing me three days before my due date. Thank goodness we didn't wait for Elise to come on her own because she weighed in at a whopping 10 lbs 1oz. At this point in the game I shouldn't be surprised but I thought for sure she would be smaller since she was a girl. I do not build small babies, and I have no idea why because no one else in my family births toddlers.

Anyway, it's strange to be a family of six now. We all are enamored with this sweet little girl. We are also surprised at the amount of hair she has. She has a full head of brown hair. I am so used to bald babies.

I am grateful to my mom who was able to come out and stay with us for over a week. I always cry when she leaves because I wonder how I can possibly do it on my own. Funny to think about life when I just had Blake. I am also grateful for Mike's accounting firm that gave him two weeks of paid paternity leave. The kids have been so excited to have daddy home. And of course I have been so appreciative of his presence. What a wonderful daddy he is.

About her name, Elise is just a name we liked and she is named Jewell after Mike's wonderful Grandmother Jewell. All of our children have family names for middle names and I think this gives them a link to their wonderful heritage.

Nesting Projects

There's nothing like being 9 months pregnant to getting a LOT of projects done. I am in full nesting frenzy. My kind mother was nice enough to come spend a few days with us to help with some of these projects.

We sanded, primed and painted a dresser. I have to say that using a power sander was awesome.

We purchased fabric and made curtains for the girls' room which I really love. We washed tons of baby clothes and blankets. And last but not least we purchased an awesome bedroom set off of Craigslist. Love Craigslist.

And of course no project would be complete without a little "undoing" by the little people. 5 seconds before our dinner guests arrived tonight, Mike found Julia's blinds in this state. Apparently she thought it would be a good idea to cut the strings holding the slats in her blinds.
I guess I should count my blessings that she didn't cut her new curtains or bedspread or take a Sharpie to her new bedroom furniture, but really............. Too bad she only has 30 cents in her piggy bank to help pay for the damage. Oh kids.

Counting Down

Even though I don't love pregnancy pics I thought I would post this one of my 42 inch waist. Ha Ha. I have 27 more days until my due date but hopefully I will be induced a week early in 20 days. "Nesting" action is in full blown swing at our house and every nook and cranny is getting cleaned, organized and arranged for our upcoming arrival. Her clothes are washed and I can't believe how small they are. WOW we are getting excited. And I am getting VERY excited not to be pregnant anymore. :)

Valentine's Day

True love consists not only in buying your husband a giant piece of red meat for Valentine's Day, but also teaching your daughter how to tenderize the meat in the marinade. She had a great time helping me prepare dinner for our special day. Having a daughter is wonderful. She was able to make most of the crust herself for Daddy's pink heart cheesecake. Of course her favorite part was that almost everything we ate had the color pink or red in it. She and Blake especially enjoyed drinking out of goblets for the first time. She has asked many times since then to drink out of a "goggle". ha ha

Of course with three kids running around chasing each other with empty crab legs our V-Day dinner was not exactly the romantic kind we experienced pre-children. But it was full of love none the less. Love these people!!!!!!!

Birthday Fun

Julia turns 5 in a few days. I told her she could invite 5 friends to her first "real" birthday party. Planning a party for a girl was really a lot of fun. As in REALLY fun. It was so fun to go shopping for just the right things for her cupcake/pony party.

Here they are decorating their cupcake boxes.

Then they each got 5 cupcakes to frost and decorate to put in the cupcake boxes.

How about the chopped off head of a pony pinata?

Blake had a great time entertaining the girls. In about 10 years he will be wanting to date them. :)

And of course, the party ended with a pink pony cake.

Ahhhhhh now I can relax. :)

10 pounds of cheese

I just finished slicing up 10 pounds of cheese into sticks in preparation for my tamales tomorrow. I can almost taste the cheesy, chile yumness that awaits me. Oh and aren't these people just so cute. Please note the missing 2 year old in the picture. That's right, some projects just work better when Cole is napping.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

What the Penn State Scandal says about us

I have to admit to my severe neglect of this blog as I have not posted for a whole month. I probably should post pictures of our cute kids on Halloween, or of how Mike and I went dressed as a pinata and little boy to a Halloween party, or at least how thrilled we are to be expecting a baby girl at the end of march. But no, I'm not going to do that tonight because I would rather discuss the Penn State Scandal.
I've read and thought a lot about this case over the past several days. It is horrifying on so many levels. University president and Joe Paterno have both gotten the axe because of the handling of it.
What really intrigues me however, is what this case says about how we as a society feel about sexual abuse. So here are the facts; a graduate student walked into the locker room at Penn State and found a naked Sandusky sodomizing what appeared to be a 10 year old child. He reported the incident to Joe Paterno who then reported it to his boss. The only action that was taken with Sandusky was that he was no longer able to bring boys from his charitable organization to Penn State. (what's the take home message here, that's fine that you molest children just don't do it in our facilities. Really people?)
Let's pretend for a moment that what the graduate student walked into was Sandusky cutting a 10 year old child's face with a knife. You can BET YOUR BOTTOM DOLLAR that the graduate student would have called 911 immediately. In fact he probably would have intervened himself to protect the child from a very sadistic man. So what's the difference here folks???? No one can argue that one is "worse" than the other. The harm from sexual abuse is life altering and terrible. So what is it? What is it about sexual abuse that causes us (generally speaking of course) to be squeamish and not do what we would do in any other harmful circumstance. And if you think this scandal is an aberration and I'm just being crazy I could point out many many more that have been handled in a similar manner. (catholic church anyone?)
It's so easy to point the finger at Joe Paterno, Tim Curley, Penn State officials etc etc. Why didn't anyone call the police, why didn't anyone stop this monster? But instead of pointing the finger, let's look at our own actions instead. Do we fail to bring up the topic of sexual abuse with our children because we are squeamish, or awkward??? Do we think, it can't happen to my child? Do we reason that if we just ignore the subject our children will be immune to it? Do we live in denial that the statistics indicate that 1 in 4 girls (or 3 depending upon what stats you read)and 1 in 7 boys will be sexually abused? Not my child we reason in our heads and then promptly do nothing and hope we don't have to think about it again. Do we see warning signs but brush them off because so and so is such a nice guy, or a good friend, or a respected community figure?
So here is my plea friends and family. Let's do something about this to ensure that our children are protected from this heinous crime. Let's have that ONGOING discussion with them. It might be scary or awkward at first to bring up the subject, but I guarantee that it will be a whole lot better than the alternative. Let's not give people the benefit of doubt when we feel something strange or sketchy about them. Trust your gut if someone gives you the creeps, because our children shouldn't pay the price of our fear of "offending" someone. A child molester isn't that stranger in the dark, instead it's almost always someone you know. Pay attention to your gut feelings about someone. And finally, we must recognize that until we as a society are open and honest about this, sexual abuse will continue to perpetuate its destructive horror upon millions of our children. It thrives in secret. It thrives in our denial. It cannot thrive if we take action.

Please talk to your children.
I have a plethora of books you can borrow to read to them.
ok, the social worker will step off her soapbox now.

Chicago

Mike had to go to a training for work last week in Chicago so I joined him for a long weekend. The weather was beautiful and the autumn foliage did not disappoint. There is so much to see and do in Chicago. It's been a long time since I've been to the Midwest but that accent gets me every time. I have VERY distinct memories of moving to Michigan and having kids at school asking me to say words such as mom and hat because they thought I talked so funny. hmmmmmm really.

Of course our trip could not be complete without deep dish pizza.

We saw a great fireworks show on Navy Pier.

A true Chicago dog. No ketchup.

Oh the pretty trees. Pretend I am NOT wearing Nike tennis shoes in this picture.

We traveled everywhere on their awesome "L" metro system. I love public transit because it makes for the best people watching. And of course being the curious george that I am I just couldn't resist talking with some new Oktoberfest friends on the bus. Yes they really were German.

This was a huge entourage of bikers and once again I just had to get a picture.

We rented bikes and rode up Lake Michigan.

The Sears tower is awesome. Going out in the glass pod is a really freaky but cool experience.

And that's a wrap. Thanks Chicago for the good memories. And special thanks to my mom and sister for taking care of the peeps so we could stay up late, sleep in , eat at sidewalk cafes without anyone spilling anything and meander about this city to our hearts content.