Fun Family Pictures!

Last month we got some family pictures taken by Andrea Gallagher Photography. If anyone knows my husband, you probably know that this is not his thing. Not to mention Mr. Hide From The Camera Lane! Andrea made it comfortable and just a little ways into it, Lane was laughing and smiling for her. I thought about waiting until Lane's front teeth grow in, but seriously, how cute is his toothless grin?

I had a couple reasons for doing family pictures. First, we hadn't had any taken with Estelle. I also wanted to get some pictures with the CASE tractor that Lane has. After Case died I wanted to put something at the cemetery other than a plant or flowers because he was buried in Washington and we are in California. As many of you know, Case is a brand of tractor so we went just a couple blocks away to Farmers Equipment (in Lynden) and bought two Case tractors, one for the cemetery and one for Lane. My friend Kristen who also lives in California but grew up in Washington, had a small Case tractor placed at Case's grave for his first birthday and gave a little one to Estelle too. So both Lane and Estelle have one in honor of Case. The last couple pictures have the tractor in them, to represent Case as a part of our family.

I love the way they turned out. Now is the hard part, trying to figure out what pictures I will enlarge and hang in our house! Here are just a few of my favorites. The sad part is that I coordinated all of our outfits around what Estelle was wearing. Gag me right!? This little girl is just too much fun!

6 months old!

Little Miss is over 6 months old now! She had her check up last week. She is doing awesome and she's a big girl at 18 lbs 4 oz. She is sitting really well now. The last couple days I have set her in front of a basket of toys and she has so much fun picking the toys out one by one.
This is her latest favorite position. She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth. She also has been getting into "downward facing dog" position (up on her hands and toes). Her little friend Lucy was doing this a while back and I thought it was so funny, now Estelle has taken to doing it too.
This week we got to do a diorama for homework. His class picked "A House for Hermit Crab" book and he picked a page and made a diorama of it. It was a fun project for this crafty mama to help him with :) The hermit crab was attached to a pipe cleaner and moved toward it's new shell!

Poor Lane has been sick the past 2 days. A fever that just won't go away. That's his only symptom, a fever and body aches. He has had to miss his zoo field trip and now tomorrow his last t-ball game and their pizza party. I am feeling really bad for him, he is such a tough little guy. We've watched lots of movies the last couple days. Tonight I made him pancakes that spelled his name. He thought it was great! My friend Kristen sent me a pancake pen (along with some other goodies) for my birthday, so I put it to good use tonight.

Apple Berry Salsa!

I've been having a craving for some Whatcom County strawberries. I guess these California ones will have to do. I got this recipe a long time ago from one of those Pampered Chef Season's Best recipe books. It is so yummy and fresh tasting. You serve the salsa with Cinnamon Chips. Lane could just eat a bunch of cinnamon chips.

Apple Berry Salsa with Cinnamon Chips

Cinnamon Chips

4 flour tortillas

1 Tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Salsa

2 medium Granny Smith apples (diced)

1 cup strawberries, diced

1 kiwi, peeled and diced

1 small orange

2 Tbsp packed brown sugar

2 Tbsp apple jelly

Preheat oven to 400 F. For cinnamon chips, lightly brush tortillas with water. Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over tortillas. Using pizza cutter, cut each tortilla into 8 wedges. Place in a single layer on a baking sheet (use a baking stone if you have one). Bake 8-10 minutes.

For salsa, mix together apples, strawberries, and kiwi. Zest and juice the orange. Add orange zest, juice, brown sugar, and jelly to fruit mixture. Mix gently.

On another note....I am having a little bit of a hard time "blooming where I am planted" literally! I am so frustrated with trying to grow things here! I have had pretty good luck with impatiens, but other than that, Ugggghhhh! I have been trying to plant some seeds outside. I know the snails love to eat things around here, so I try to keep up on the snail bait. I had some good starts going too, only to find them mowed down by snails the last two mornings! So... between unsupervised 4 years olds peeing on my flowers (no joke), children (hooligans) driving through them with their power wheels and the snails, growing much of anything around here is an uphill battle. It is times like these that I REALLY want my own yard again. I am not a city girl. I am a country girl at heart. Sometimes I ask myself, "do I belong here?" I guess I do, because God has brought our family here. I am sure there is a reason, but sometimes I struggle with trying to find it... and I just want to get out of our little ghetto, move to the country and play pioneer woman for awhile.

Eventful

So thankful for these two kiddos! They keep me on my toes, but I love 'em to pieces!

Last week was an eventful week! I celebrated my birthday. Reese was gone, so my friend Kelly and I went to Miguels for Mexican food with the kids and then went down to the Cupcakery for dessert! If you are ever at the Cupcakery I would recommend the Mexican Hot Chocolate cupcake with Cinnamon Frosting!!
Speaking of keeping me on my toes...Lane got 9 stitches on Friday night. He had gone out to the playground outside our house to play and I was headed out the door with Estelle, when I hear him come in the house crying. He had split his chin open big time. I took one look, gave him a wet wash cloth to hold on it and we were out the door, no question in my mind, he needed stitches! Lane was very brave, he is such a tough kid.
I will spare you the full on shot of the cut and stitches. Yuck!
For Mother's day, Reese was still gone, so we had our friends Charlie and Lucy and their mommy Leah over for brunch. We had a great day, the boys played well together and the girls both took naps!
These two girls crack me up. Lucy is army crawling all over the place! Estelle just seems to push herself backwards a lot!

This Mother's day I am very thankful for the time I have with my kids. With Reese being gone so much and Estelle not being a great sleeper, sometime I get frustrated and discouraged. Sometimes I envy Reese being gone and having a "break." But the truth is that Reese would rather just be home, and I would never want to be gone away from my kids like he has to be. I also need to remember in those frustrating moments, that there is really no place else I'd rather be than home with my kids. I am blessed to be able to stay home with them and be here for everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly (a large split open chin comes to mind!). This was my second mother's day without my little love Case. It will never feel quite right without him, but that is what this life on earth is like, never quite right. It will be a great mother's day when all my kids are with me in heaven!

Bubbles, Beach and our little Beauty

We had a major bubble bath the other night. Bubble mat + bubble bath = LOTS OF BUBBLES!

We walked down to the beach for a fun afternoon yesterday. The boys swam, flew the kite, played LaCrosse etc. Estelle and I came down after her nap. We roasted hot dogs and made smores. Estelle hung out in her Go Pod.
Lane had fun climbing on a lifeguard stand.... and jumping off of it.

My little beauty in her tutu. She got in her tutu for church today. She's thinks she is quite the fancy pants.

"You talking to me?" She LOVES attention. Loves it when anyone talks to her, holds her, takes her picture.....oh boy!

5 months, 12 days, plus 1

Case died when he was 5 months and 12 days old. Today marked the day when Estelle got to be older than her older brother did. It is a bittersweet day. Mentally, it gives me a little more peace. But, it's also such a reminder to me of how we fell in love with Case in those short 5 months and 12 days. I can't imagine life without Estelle, just like I couldn't imagine life without Case. Now I am trying to navigate life without Case, trying to figure it all out without my baby boy.

Lane still talks about Case a lot. He shares more of his feelings now than he did before. I am so thankful for his vivid memory of him. He even remembers things Reese and I don't, I guess different things stand out to a five year old. He regularly tells me how much he misses Case and that he wishes we had both babies. He adores Estelle. The other day he told me that he just loves her so much and that he's never going to let her go. It melted my heart...

Case at 5 months

Estelle at 5 months. We are reminded of Case everyday, just by looking at Estelle. Sometimes they look so much alike!

Today I put Estelle's hand on Case's handprint the hospital did for us. For me it was a connection for them, she will grow up "knowing" her big brother.
This girl...I have spent the last couple days just thanking God for her. I am not sure where we would be without her. The joy and hope she has brought us, it's a gift. She has kept me on my toes, has a mind of her own and doesn't like to sleep a whole lot. I have been a little over protective, Lane is probably really sick of telling me "yeah, she's okay." I constantly ask him when she is out of my sight, usually in the car. I hope someday she will truly understand how much love we have for her, what a gift she is.

Spring Break Pictures

We started the week out with my dad, Grandpa Jim coming for a visit. We did a lot of baseball playing and went out to eat a lot while he was here. Lane loved showing Grandpa his baseball skills!
Lane's new smile. The other front tooth will be coming out soon I'm sure.
After Grandpa left we dyed some easter eggs and then on Friday afternoon, we left for Carlsbad. We stayed to two nights in a hotel and went to Legoland.
Estelle loves being out and about, Lane is in the background on a ride. She did good on the trip except for sleeping in the hotel room at night. I was up a lot with her...
Lane climbed this tower at Legoland, he did awesome, this kids not afraid of heights.
The highlight at Legoland was the new Star Wars miniland! Even I was impressed!

The hotels had an awesome pool. Estelle and I even got in.
Estelle's first time swimming. She loved it! And it wasn't real warm either. She is so funny. I had been given this size 12 month bathing suit, she filled it out quite nicely at only 5 months old! Chunky monkey!
The pool also had a slide and some water toy/fountain things, Lane had a blast going from the slide to the pool and to the hot tub.
This morning we got up and went to the SeaLife aquarium at Legoland. It was nice, but a lot smaller than expected. Lane liked it. He had an ocean unit in school so he was "educating" us on all the ocean life we were seeing.
There is a couple of these bubbles that you can pop your head up into an aquarium. Here is Reese and Lane....
and Estelle joined them too!
We got home this afternoon and had a little egg hunt. This is a field outside of our neighborhood, Lane plays baseball out here and we chose it for our egg hunt too. All the (unsupervised) kids in our neighborhood "join in" in about everything we try to do right outside of our house so we go and hide back here :) Sure would be nice to have our own backyard. I helped Estelle find her eggs.
Lane kept diving for the eggs I was about to pick up. I tell you, carrying Estelle, an Easter basket, and picking up eggs was a workout, especially when I was trying to ward off that sneaky Lane.
Lane's haul,

I set Estelle's basket by her and she kept picking it up and putting it on her lap to try to get the eggs out. She surprises me at what she can do. Tonight at dinner, she was sitting on Reese's lap and we were trying to give her a toy to play with, she grabbed the bag of salad and wanted to play with that more than any toy we offered her. In fact, she cried every time we tried to take it away! Her second tooth popped through today too. She is drooling like CRAZY.

I think back on last Easter, it was so hard. We went to Palm Desert last year for a getaway. We thought about going again this year, but to be honest it was too depressing for me to want to go back. We felt so lost last year without Case. To be honest, I still feel lost much of the time. Lane and Estelle bring me hope, I am so thankful for that. But I am not sure what is going to take away this feeling, possibly nothing here on this earth. I am so thankful for the hope I have in our RISEN Christ. Because of Him, I know that someday I will feel complete again. Until then, I will enjoy the blessings I have on this earth.