Good Boy

I feel like I haven't blogged about Jarrett enough. Apparently drama and trouble are the things that make it onto here, and since Jarrett doesn't cause any of that, he goes under the radar. When I took this picture I was tempted to delete it until I saw the pure joy and excitement on Jarrett's face. That's totally him.

The other day I went to the party store to order balloons for Danielle's birthday and I told the kids they could pick out a treat. As I went to pay for it I realized that I had forgotten my wallet at home and told the kids to put their treats back. I finished placing my balloon order and hurried the kids out. When we made it to the car, I saw the treat still in Jarrett's hand and in one of my "stellar" parenting moments said, "Jarrett! I told you to put that back! We haven't paid for it and that's stealing!" He, of course, didn't mean to and must have not understood what I said in the store. When we got back out in the car after taking the treat back to the store he just melted into a puddle of tears. He does not want to cause trouble and he was heartbroken that I said he had stolen something. Time for me to backpedal. "I'm sorry," I blurted. "You didn't do anything wrong." A good minute of consoling and he was okay. He's such a good kid!

Happy Birthday, Danielle!

After 45 days of counting down and numerous hours of planning (by her), Danielle's 7th birthday finally came! She takes birthdays very seriously and made sure that every detail that needed to be taken care of was covered. She gave me diagrams for decorations and the cake. She made various reminders for everyone in the family so we wouldn't forget her birthday. She boldly told people they could call her first thing in the morning or come by any time to give her a present.

Luckily we somehow met enough of her expectations to make her happy.When we put her to bed at the end of her special day, she was close to tears because it was all over.

I am grateful to her because I know she made a lot of exceptions to her plans to make my life easier. She was fine with a store bought cake, and was flexible to when we had to have her birthday dinner the night before. She may have just turned seven, but she acts so much older!

The Kitty

For over a month Liesl has referred to herself as "The Kitty". She meows all the time, crawls around on the floor, and likes to be put in a cage (behind the pillows on the couch or in a laundry basket). The Kitty likes to climb on our laps to have her back rubbed. The Kitty also refers to herself in third person: "The Kitty wants . . ." or "Please help The Kitty."

Sometimes this kitty thing comes in handy. When she's acting up we remind her that bad kitties go outside and if she doesn't shape up, she will too.

We're Adding to the Family!

(Before you read this post you must take an oath to not leave any comments with the words "crazy," "insane," or any other word synonymous to those.)

Yes, we're expecting! But what are we expecting?

Is it A: A goldendoodle puppy?
Is it B: A baby boy?
Or is it C: Both?

The correct answer is C!

Can you believe it? Even I think we're nuts (just don't call us that to our faces, please!) In complete honesty, we weren't planning on getting a puppy and baby so close together (the puppy comes in July and the baby three months later in October). We signed a contract to purchase a puppy last August in hopes of getting it by January, but the dam didn't come into heat until last month, therefore putting us in this situation. I guess it's a mixed blessing because I can't imagine having to clean up a puppy's messes with the morning sickness I experienced. I don't know that it will be much better at nine months pregnant, but hopefully we can get a little training in before the baby's born.

We're all pretty excited the baby's a boy, and I'm especially glad Jarrett gets a brother. When I told him he was getting a baby brother he excitedly exclaimed "Yay!" Of course I wanted to make sure that he really understood what that means, so I asked "Does that mean the baby's a boy or a girl?" and he replied, kind of sheepishly, "A girl?" So he may not understand yet, but I think he'll appreciate it later. Also, we found out we were getting the puppy the day after we found out we were having a boy. When I told Jarrett we were getting a puppy, his reply was a very underwhelming "Oh." I think he's wondering what else is coming next?

I think it's good for Liesl to have a baby brother because she'd clobber a sweet little girl. She'll be great at teaching her brother all about climbing and playing rough. I'm really surprised at how much she grasps about the baby. The only kid we told at the beginning was Danielle because she was concerned about Mommy being sick in bed so much. Eventually the news came to Jarrett and we never actually told Liesl. She just picked up on it on her own from conversations between the other kids and me. One day she came into my bedroom and pointedly asked "There's a baby in Mommy's tummy?" That totally caught me off guard because I figured she wouldn't have any idea about what a baby means until it actually came home. She's smart . . . too smart.

Danielle always thought the baby was going to be a boy because we had to follow an ABAB pattern. She still wanted a girl, but was happy that it's a boy. She's such a great big sister!

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In January Danielle went to Walgreens with Robert and saw a Cinderella snow globe that she just had to have. Luckily, Robert picked up on this and bought it for her as a Valentine's gift and it's been sitting at her bedside ever since.

This week Danielle's school had an art assembly where each class displayed art the students had made. This was her contribution:Can you read what it says? In pink it says "My wish snow globe" and in red "at wallgreens". Robert's so proud (ha ha!)

Sunday Leftovers

Yesterday Robert and I went on a baking spree. Robert had been planning to do a few Swiss goodies ever since he got this cookbook in the mail on Monday. And then I had a craving for Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies. Since our children are crazy and do not like peanut butter, they balked at that idea. Luckily for them, I had an unnatural level of benevolence (maybe because they were good at church?) and was willing to do some M&M cookies too.

This is what we ended up with last night:Robert's contribution was a yeast cake (traditional wedding cake in some Swiss villages) and Bernese plait (yummy--and fancy!--bread). Here it is before he and I tore into it:Very impressive, yes? I think we went through a pound of butter yesterday to make all of our goodies. Yummmm . . .

Adventures in Painting - A Light Start

When we moved into Robert's parent's house, his mom told me I was welcome to paint as much as I wanted to. This was an exciting prospect for me because I thought I enjoyed painting (and was pretty good at it) based on our two bathroom redos in our old house. At the same time I was intimidated with painting my in-law's house. They will be living in it again, and I wanted to choose colors that they'd be okay with.

I decided to start with the guest room and bathroom since those are rooms that I don't see very often, and I figured if I didn't like the results, it wouldn't matter too much. Even with this in mind, it took me over 20 paint samples to decide. The initial colors that I thought I liked appeared too dark, then the next ones were too bright, and then too "country", and so on. By the time I chose two colors, the rooms looked like a circus tent with strips of color all around.

I decided on a green for the bathroom and a blue for the bedroom. I thought they were fairly dark colors, but when I started painting the bathroom and couldn't really tell where the new paint started and the old antique white ended, it ended up not being very much color at all:The bedroom was the same story. It ended up being a lot lighter than I thought it would be, although I could at least see a difference between the old and new paint. My friend described it pretty well when she called it a crystal blue:After these rooms I decided that no matter what, any color I put on the old white walls was going to be a stark difference. So I got a little bolder with the master bed and bath. I went to my previous 20 samples and was able to pick a bathroom color from those. The color I chose ended up surprising me in a good way. I thought it would be a little bit of a grayer color, but it's an organic shade that changes with the light:It's blue-green, but not in an 80's aquamarine way. I was going for a relaxing feel, and I think I got it.

I wanted to do blue for this bedroom, too, but I had learned that I needed go darker than any of my previous samples. I only needed three new samples to make the decision this time, and was super excited to start, even though the room wasn't ready yet. I still need to finish 1/3 of the room, but this is what most of it looks like:Next week I'll have pictures of the kid's rooms. (I'm committing myself so I'll finish them up this week!)

Serious Easter Fun

The Easter Bunny left a bunch of eggs around our house. Danielle was first up and waited very patiently for her brother and sister to wake up to start the hunt. Once it did start, Danielle and Jarrett were serious hunters:At least Liesl thought the hunt was fun:It was fun for me, too. Happy Easter!