Recent Happenings in 500 words and pictures or less?

I never do new year's resolutions, mostly because I think it just makes you feel like crap when you've already failed by January 15th..and let's face it, sticking with them is virtually impossible.  However, I am a big fan of the whole clean slate for the new year, and I typically try to set some goals for the year.  One of my big ones, was to spend more time blogging (read: posting once a week), expand the blog from more than just a family update blog etc--well you see why I don't do new year's resolutions?  I am clearly incapable of keeping them.

Well, I still have this goal in mind, if life ever slowed down enough to allow me to eat/drink/sleep etc.  I do feel compelled to keep up the family updates simply because I don't have baby books for the kids-another major mommy shortcoming on my part, I know. To be fair, I think baby books are outdated in the age of social media, digital photography, smart phones etc.  I mean I have thousands of photos and videos of my kids--I grew up in the age of film photography where I'd get a roll of 24 developed every few months.   At least the kids will have this blog to look back at someday, right?

Winter is hard with kids....this winter was miserable, it seemed like it was raining, cold, windy and grey 95% of the time.  To say we've got cabin fever would be an understatement-the kids fight, they drive me nuts, we're just all itching for the warm days of spring and sunshine that will break us out of these walls!  

Anyways--I haven't posted lately mostly because our life is moving at ten thousand miles a minute with lots of exciting updates and events despite the nasty weather.  I'll attempt to hit the high points to get caught back up to speed with a photo dump of the last 2 months...

The kids have really started playing together a lot-and fighting a lot, but it is so fun to watch them interact

Hank goes to art class every Monday morning--he's clearly a creative genius.  Soccer starts next week--this will go one of two ways..I'm slightly nervous :)

Dad had a birthday-and anyone who knows me knows that birthdays are all celebrated in our house--for those wondering, the viking hat is the official Ritger family birthday hat, if it's your birthday, you wear the hat-no exceptions to this rule.

 Lucy has become quite the little handful of late--into everything as you can see

Some loungin on the couch watching Daniel Tiger-I just love this picture, Lucy is so in love with her brother and has a hard time staying away from him despite his attempts to keep her away

 We love Valentine's Day-working on our crafting projects

 Helping dad at one of our rental properties

 Little stinker at 11 months old!

Finally able to share the tub together--one of the biggest decisions Hank makes everyday is what color bath he wants every night

An unseasonably warm day at the zoo with Dad

 Oh yeah....did we forget to mention this happened?  Baby Ritger #3 arriving mid to late August-not only is the car to small but so is the house--we're about to undertake our biggest project to date--well not us, but we will be adding on an upstairs to our house in the upcoming months!  All individuals under age 10 will be required to move upstairs along with their toys and belongings--I cannot tell you how excited I am about this!   Not as excited about the idea of my house being under construction for 2 months...but well worth it in the end.

We find out Monday if this little squirt is a boy or girl--I'm 99.9% certain boy so we'll see how those mommy instincts pan out this go-around, they haven't failed me yet!

So there's the news for now....I had to get caught up before our big event tomorrow--LUCY'S FIRST BIRTHDAY! So bittersweet for this mama watching her babes grow up so fast, but so much fun to celebrate them.  I'll be back soon enough with a birthday rundown!

Christmas

I realize that we are now closer to Valentine's Day than Christmas, and I am just now getting around to posting about our Christmas.  I think it has taken me this long to recover from the holidays, and I'm still relishing in the idea that I have a whole year before I have to turn around and do them again :)  The Christmas season took a whole new turn this year now that we have a believer in the house.  The magic of Christmas really came alive in our house, and while it is so much fun to see Hank and even Lucy  wide-eyed in anticipation of all the fun...it is absolutely exhausting for mama!  On top of all my usual responsibility, you have to tack on all the decorating, shopping, wrapping, santa visits, winter wonderlands, parties, baking, and that silly elf that you have to remember to move every night--there were many a nights I woke up at 3am realizing I didn't do anything with him and had to get up and move the silly thing...So yes, I enjoy Christmas...but so thankful it is just once a year.  

This year we had Aunt Susie, Uncle Kevin, and Cousin Eliza in town for the week-so the kids had fun getting to see their only cousin and aunt and uncle (excited to learn cousin #2 is arriving this summer!)  We took trips to the Yellow River Game Ranch and the zoo with Eliza and spent Christmas Eve with the Ritger family and hosted my family for Christmas day.  Both kids were overwhelmed with gifts as usual, and totally wiped out after all the festivities were over-3 hour naps were in order for 3 days following Christmas.

Welcome 2013!  (and no we don't celebrate New Year's in this house--I was asleep by 10pm, I have an almost one year old that doesn't sleep through the night yet--I sleep at all available opportunities)

10 months

We're down to 6 weeks until my little one turns 1 !  Party plans are already in full swing-I love nothing more than celebrating my children's birthdays :)  The biggest change in our "little fella" as Hank calls her, is that she's on the go non-stop now.  She's mastered the crawling; however we call her pegleg because she crawls while dragging one leg underneath her (hopefully this does not continue with walking).  She's become very efficient and will tear across a room to get to whatever her brother is doing.  Sibling rivalry is in full swing now-the only thing Lucy wants to play with is whatever Hank has, and this drives him crazy!. Hank has started playing with trains/legos on the kitchen counter while standing on a chair so that Lucy cannot get to them.  She just sits at his feet and screams.   It is already driving me insane-I can only imagine the years of fighting ahead.  Lucy is quickly getting into everything around the house-always putting non-food items in her mouth-eating paper is a current favorite along with dusty cheerios.  She pulls up on everything and is already starting to let go in an attempt to stand on her own.  I think Hank will have someone running after him in no time.  

Still happy as can be 99% of the time-she has started waving to us and just babbles up a storm non-stop.  I think some of her mamamama's are starting to become intentional.  When she's unhappy she will always reach for me while whining mamamama at me.  She eats everything in sight--loves her meat.  Just the other night she finished off 3 pancakes, a piece of bacon, and a pile of hashbrowns at Ihop for dinner-and was banging her plate on the table for more !  Still a peanut, but I'm certainly starting to notice some weight packing on this little one with the amount of food she intakes in a day.  

Such a sweetie--can't believe it's almost birthday time! 

A mama's girl?

 With both of our children, it seems that they are such a perfect combination of both Johnny and I that we never really hear "oh Hank/Lucy looks just like dad/mom etc".  We hear all the time "who do they look like?"    Sometimes I want to say "the mailman", but in our neighborhood that would be a whole other story :)

Recently though, I've had a few people actually tell me that Lucy favors me....and this I already know is true, because sometimes when I look at baby pictures of myself I feel like I'm looking at Lucy.  When she was a baby, sometimes I would look at her and see my face in hers.   Hank and Lucy both favor each other quite a bit...and actually most family members see Hank's resemblance to his mama as well.  They got their blond hair/blue eyes from their dad's side....but I like to think my adorable babies take after their mama....

Take a look here at some shots of me and Lucy at around the same age....and please excuse the amount of cuteness-between my baby pictures and Lucy, it could be a bit much to handle :)

9 months of sweetness

Lucy has now been in the world as long as I was pregnant with her (well technically she was born a month early...details).  What a little personality she's becoming- So sweet, full of giggles, and easy going.  Lucy's laughs fill the house all day long, and now we hear long strings of mamamamama, dadadada, babababa, and huge squeals, as she is starting to "talk" more to us.  She loves music, and immediately starts dancing and clapping her hands when she hears it.  We started going to baby music class this month, and she loves it!  Last week, I gave in and took her to get her hair trimmed, I just couldn't handle all the hair in her eyes all the time.  She looks even more adorable now with a little pixie cut.  Still not crawling, but always up on all 4s rocking back and forth--so it should be anyday now that she takes off after her brother.  She pulls to stand on everything, and just grins ear to ear everytime.  Quite the chowhound-she eats everything we give her without complaint and is mostly just eating table foods at this point.  

At 9 months she weighed in at 16 lbs 3 oz (17th percentile, and our biggest jump in the growth chart yet!-finally out of the 10th).  She was 28 inches long (60th percentile).  Still quite the petite little miss--trending exactly after her dad.  Speaking of her dad--she just adores him.  Always lifting her arms up to him and saving the biggest, dimpled grins for him.  

Only 9 months old, but I sure can't imagine a time without my sweet little princess.

Happy Holidays

What fun we are having this year celebrating the magic of Christmas with our little ones !!! 

8 months

What a doll baby I have.  I have enjoyed every single moment this little one has been in our lives.  Yes, even all the moments in the middle of the night, because lord knows there have been (and continue to be) plenty of those.  At 8 months, this cutie is dying to crawl but cannot seem to figure out how to coordinate the act.  She leans all the way forward until she falls on her face and starts screaming, or rocks back and forth screaming the whole time trying to figure out how to get some forward motion. I've said all along that I don't care how long it takes for child #2 to get moving since I now know how much more challenging life becomes with mobile children.  Although, at this point I just want this baby to figure out how to move to put everyone out of their misery!  

Lucy loves to eat! She happily stuffs handfuls of food in her little mouth 3 meals a day now.  She uses her 4 teeth to munch on her puffs, cheerios, bananas, waffles, apples, peas, graham crackers.  Basically, we have yet to give her something she doesn't love.  

Bouncing is a new favorite activity.  She loves to jump in her jumper, and just smiles and giggles the whole time.  She has baskets and baskets of baby toys, but she much prefers to play with anything her brother has-typically trains, tracks, and cars.  Lucy is a musical child.  She starts bouncing and dancing the second she hears music.  She babbles up a storm-dadas, babas, mamas...but no true words yet.  

She loves her brother and her daddy-she flashes them the biggest smiles whenever she sees them.  Clearly, she has them wrapped around her finger already.  She's still a peanut--probably about 16 pounds.  Her hair is wild and crazy but I won't cut it!  

I just love this girl so so much.  What a joy she is to our family.