Kid Speak, 2016

A running list of funny things my kids have said since February. 

Ahem...



Libby: "My hands are so dry they feel like a dead leaf."

Libby, praying: "Dear Heavenly Father, please help us not be robbers."

Piper, talking about Leighana's husband, Stefan, getting his appendix out: "Leighana's Stefan went to the hospital to get his apostle out."

Piper, playing with stuffed animals: "Attention, ladies and peppermint, we are going to have a wedding."

Piper, playing with Birdie: "Birdie is a pinchy little girl."

Piper was upset because we put a password on the TV so they couldn't watch cartoons anytime they wanted. Emphatically, "Dad made a wrong choice by locking the TV."

Piper, getting ready to leave the house, singing: "I am a princess, yes I am. And I can't find my left shoe. No I can't. It looks like this. Grandma gave me these for my birthday."

Whenever Piper gets dressed and the clothes she wants to wear are inside out, she throws them at me and says, "Mom, can you figure out this?"

Me: "Wanna watch Hotel Transylvania 2?" 
Libby: "Transylvania? I though it was Pennsylvania." 
Piper: "I thought it was trash-can-vania."

Piper: "I have something to tell you from my scriptures." (Reading from scriptures) "If you listen to your mom, you will get My Little Pony and get to watch it every night."

Piper, while we're out on a walk: "I smell honey rays!" (Honey Rays is a character from My Little Pony, but she really meant honey suckle.

Piper comes downstairs dressed in leggings with a tucked in t-shirt: "This is my running outfit."

Piper had a nightmare about giant spiders in the house. She got in bed with Libby. 
Libby: "What's wrong?" 
Piper: "You don't want to know."

Piper, while we're eating: "Birdie, you're so uh-barassing! 
Me: "Why is she embarrassing?"
Piper: "She drops everything off her tray!"

Libby just lost a tooth and was feeling the hole. 
Piper: "Libby, stop talking with your hand in your mouth. You're so uh-barassing!"

Libby: "This morning Piper stuck her finger in her butt and then made me smell her finger." 
Me: "Did you do it?" 
Libby: "She made me!" 
Me: "Piper! Did you wash your hands?" 
Piper: Looks around, "I think so." 

Piper, after I read a long book to Libby: "Wow, that was long. That was 80 miles."

I saw Piper putting a spoon in the silverware drawer. 
Me: "Piper, is that the spoon you just used?" 
Piper: "Yes." 
Me: "It goes in the sink." 
Piper: Stares/smiles. "Sometimes I just lick spoons and put them back in the drawer."

Libby - 6

Libby is such a big girl now. She turned 6 and we had a birthday party for her at Union Park, where the kids got to ride the carousel, play on the huge rocket slide, and splash in the last little bit of the wading pool as it was draining for the day.

We could not have asked for better weather. It was such a nice day. I loved being able to do the party at a park - no cleaning my house before or after the party and plenty of room for as many kids and families as we wanted.

Libby is an awesome big sister. She's so generous. Anytime she gets a special treat (at church, etc), she saves half of it for Piper. She is watchful of Birdie and has pulled lots of little pieces of paper out of her mouth.

I love Libby's creativity. She loves to draw and write stories and I'm always finding papers around the house with her artwork.

I just love this girl!

Birdie - ONE

My baby is one! She crawls and pulls herself to standing. She can stand for a second or two on her own. She says wow, mama, hi, and uh-oh. Yesterday, she started copying Libby and Piper when they answered "I do" to a question I asked.

She does what we call "head dancing" where she shakes her head around and stick her tongue out repeatedly. It's absolutely hilarious.

She goes to bed about 8 and sleeps till 7 or 8, but she still wakes up at least twice a night. She sometimes takes 2 naps, but often only 1. I'm sure that's my fault for not being more consistent with naptime, but it's hard when I want or need to be out and about with the other kids. So she gets a lot of cat naps in the car or while I'm carrying her in the Ergo or in the bike trailer on bike rides or walks.

Birdie smiles easily, but is wary of strangers. Even a long enough look from a stranger can break her down into tears. She's a sweetie pie, though. I love that she knows how to hug and kiss me now. Her little arms around my neck are the best.

On Birdie's first birthday, we were in Janesville, WI, tagging along with Jared on a business trip. I had planned on taking the kids out to dinner and ordering a dessert to celebrate Birdie's birthday, but we ended up just swimming in the hotel pool instead and running out to the grocery store for a few snacks.

Anyway, the next week, we went to an apple orchard near us and picked apples so I used those to make an apple cake and we sang happy birthday to Birdie a week late. I realized afterward that it was Birdie's due date (Sept 5), so I guess it was appropriate. It was my dad's bday, too.

Birdie is just so ridiculously loved in our family.

OBX Family Reunion

We met Jared's parents and siblings and their families in Nags Head, NC for a week at the beach. We all stayed in one big house and I feel like I hardly saw Libby all week because she was glued to her cousins the whole time. Most of the cousins are much older than our kids but they were so sweet to play with Libby and Piper and both kids said the best part of the vacation was playing with cousins. Can't wait to do it again!

A few memories:

We flew to NC and on our way through security in Des Moines, Piper went bouncing through the metal detector (because she's 3! and excited!). The TSA agent said "can you go through again just walking?" She obediently went through again, a bit more subdued because I think she got a little scared.

We flew into Raleigh on Saturday, stayed overnight, and then drove to OBX the next day (after visiting our old ward for Sacrament meeting). The rental car we got on Saturday was literally the ugliest vehicle that Enterprise owns. It was a boxy Ford Transit. We had reserved a full-size sedan, but when we got to the lot and the Enterprise employee showed us the options, I said we'd take whichever one would be easiest to fit 3 carseats side by side. He said, "well, you could take that van over there." I thought it was surely in a different price category, but apparently, it was not at risk of possibly being rented, so he let us have it for no extra charge. We felt like that was a good deal, so we took it. Unfortunately, when we were 30 minutes into our 3.5 hour drive on Sunday, the van died. Just completely lost power while we were travelling at highway speed. We coasted to the shoulder, got out and opened the hood (because that's what you do, right? even if you have no idea what the problem is?) and called Enterprise's roadside assistance. As soon as we told the rep what happened, he said "I know what the problem is - this happens all the time with Fords." Apparently it was an electrical failure and he gave us a series of steps to complete to reset the computer and sure enough, the car started up. But not for long. We broke down a total of 3 times on our way to exchange the car. Finally, we made it to the Greenville airport and exchanged it for a minivan. Whew.

We went to the beach our first night there just to take a walk. But we couldn't resist putting our feet in and that turned into the kids getting completely soaked from head to toe. At one point, Libby didn't listen when I told her to come back closer (the tide was coming in and I could see she was going to get hit by a wave). Sure enough, she got buried by the wave, but I was able to grab her and she was fine. Surprisingly, it didn't seem to bother her too much, and this is the girl who hates getting her face wet even in the bathtub. When I got her out of the water, I gave her a stern reprimand to listen to me immediately because I don't want her to get washed away by a wave. Piper must have heard this and although it didn't scare her at the time, I think she must have been thinking about it all night because the next morning when we went to the beach, she got in the water for a few minutes and then suddenly remembered what I said about getting washed away. She had a huge, once-in-a-lifetime, earth-shattering meltdown. She didn't want to go anywhere near the water and she wanted everyone ("the whole family!") to GET OUT. I wasn't able to console her at the beach, so I finally carried her, kicking and screaming (with Birdie on by back, too!) 1/2 mile back to the house. She didn't want to leave the beach without Jared and Libby, hence the kicking and screaming.

I finally got her to calm down after sitting with her in the hot tub for a while. Then, as we got out of the hot tub and I was placing the cover back on, Piper ran over and jumped in the pool by herself. She loves jumping in the pool, but she must have forgotten she didn't have her puddle jumper on. She couldn't touch and she can't swim, so it was pretty terrifying. I heard the splash, so I was able to turn around and see her and jump right in after her to save her. She swallowed some water, and when I got her out, she was crying and said, "that was scary!" Poor girl.

This fear of the ocean continued the whole week, so we never got to enjoy a day at the beach with the whole family - we had to take turns staying back at the house with Piper. I just felt so bad for her because I've never seen her so scared or upset about anything. I mean, she really thought that Libby was going to die. It was just breaking my heart. But she had tons of fun swimming in the pool and hot tub at the house. And Libby loved the beach. She didn't play in the water much (it was windy and stormy much of the time and the waves were pretty big the whole week) but she loved building sandcastles, and especially finding shells.

The teens and adults played on boogie boards and skim boards (my favorite!). One day, we rented stand up paddle boards and a kayak and played with those on the sound. We saw tons of sand crabs on the beach. We ate crab legs, played games (things, international rummy, charades), and had a glow stick pool party for my niece Paige's 18th birthday. And we found Hershey's cotton candy ice cream at one of the ice cream parlors. We had that flavor earlier this summer in Dubuque, IA and it is my favorite now!

Oh, and when we transferred all of our luggage from the Ford to the new minivan, we somehow missed my camera. I had even packed my tripod so we could take some family pictures, so I was so bummed to realize on Monday that it was way back in Greenville, NC. Luckily, Enterprise found it when we asked them to look for it and we were able to stop by and pick it up on our way back to Raleigh a week later, but I all I have to document the trip are some crappy cell phone pictures. :)

Just say no 

Rainy drive out to the Outer Banks

My sand monster

Jeanette's Pier

Libby with her cousin, Bethany

On the deck of our house

Libby and Bethany

Ice cream!

Birdie - 8/9 months

At 8 months, Birdie was making high-pitched squeals, biting me constantly with her 6 teeth, learning to clear her throat. and eating paper whenever possible. She also began sitting more confidently on her own.

At 9 months now, she is leaning forward trying to get on all fours, though she's almost always stalled at all threes - she ends up with one leg bent under her in crawling position and the other leg still sticking out straight to the side, like she's doing a cheerleader's herkey. She now has 8 teeth and still bites like crazy. The worst is when I'm carrying her on my back and she clenches down on my back and I can't reach her mouth to disarm her!

She sort of babbles and one thing she was saying for a while was "hi da." I'm 100% sure she wasn't meaning anything by that, but it sounded like "hi dad" so it was really cute.

Birdie - 6 months

Oh my, this baby of mine is half a year old. I still can't get enough of her snuggles. She loves to watch her sisters. She's starting to be interested in toys. She likes swatting at the Little People zoo, especially the swing. Speaking of swings, she tried out the swing in our backyard for the first time this past week.

She is trying tastes of foods: cream of wheat, avocado, banana, carrots, and apples. Mostly she loves chewing on spoons. 

Her two bottom teeth popped in the day I wrote her 5 month post. Funny thing is she and Piper both got their 2 bottom teeth on exactly 5 months and 1 day. Libby was also 5 months, but I can't say I remember the day.

She is not quite sitting up on her own yet, nor is she rolling. She's just happy to be held or be stationary!

 

High Trestle Trail

One of Iowa's iconic landmarks is the High Trestle Trail bridge. Since we just celebrated 2 years in this part of Iowa, it's about time we finally got around to visiting the bridge! It is a very busy trail. It was in the 50s today, but windy in exposed areas. Still a great day to be outside, but I felt bad that I didn't have gloves for the kids. They biked 2 miles and were champs about it.

 

 

 

 

Birdie - 5 months

Wasn't I just writing Birdie's 4 month post yesterday? January flew by and my baby is 5 months old now. And those teeth still haven't popped through! Her gums are swollen and bulging and I can see 2 little teeth just ready to make their entrance. Hopefully then she'll start sleeping better again. 

Despite not feeling so well this past month, Birdie is still super smiley and generally pretty content. She sucks on her hands like crazy and I've had to put bibs on her to keep her clothes from getting soaked. I've had to change her clothes multiple times in one day because she was soaking wet from drool! 

Happy 5 months, pretty bird!

Bedtime Rewards and Ice Skating

For a few months, we've been doing a reward system with Libby and Piper for bedtime. Every night that they go to bed and STAY THERE, they get to draw a smiley face on their chart. After 7 smiley faces, they earn a reward. The first time we tried this, Jared was feeling pretty desperate and he told them prior to beginning the chart that they could choose ANY toy they wanted! So they were getting all these ideas about dolls that walk and talk. I had to squash that and tell them we would have a price limit.

The next reward was a night eating out at Chick-Fil-A. The most recent one was ice skating. This was Libby's idea and they were both really looking forward to it. They actually completed their charts right before Christmas, but we had a heck of a time finding a day when 1) Jared was off work, 2) we didn't have other obligations and 3) the weather wasn't miserable. As it turns out, it was only in the 20s the day we went, but it wasn't too windy, so we survived.

Jared decided to just sit this one out with Birdie rather than lace up and take turns with me. Birdie slept the whole time (she must have hibernated because it was so cold!) all bundled up in her carseat. I took Libby and Piper out on the ice and it probably took 20 minutes to make our first lap, with them hanging onto the rail for dear life! I was so glad they weren't getting too frustrated, so I didn't mind how slow-going it was! Eventually, Piper wanted to give up, so I asked Jared to go rent one of the "skate-aids" - the walker that kids can hold onto and push in front of them. It was still hard for both girls, but eventually they figured out how to push it. They each had meltdowns at one point or another and had to go take a break with Jared. They did much better when I could be one-on-one with them. Some teenage girls ran into Libby when she was using the skate-aid. She didn't fall, but I think she was startled and embarassed. She turned to me and said "Mommy, I was going so fast!" and then broke down in tears.

Those teenage girls were dangerous; later, I got hit from behind. I had no idea it was coming, and fell hard on my wrist and bottom. My wrist is still bruised and my whole back still hurts. But better me than one of my kids.

I know Piper looks so sad and pathetic in this picture, but she was actually quite happy at this point. Falling didn't really bother her.