independence weekend

did everyone have a good 4th weekend? i think i can safely say we gerbickians did. let's see, i'll give ya a quick run down: drive to my parents in cinnamon lake (oh) friday morning, addy played like crazy & even took an afternoon nap (as did we all!), go to balloon lift off, watch adeline eat gobs of oreos & then have tantrum after we take oreos away, put girls down, stay up late with my hubby & parents, wake up at 10 a.m. (ooh yea), hang out in pj's for awhile, lunch, sister & brother in law arrive, talk with mom & sister for awhile, decide to go shopping with my mom to outlet mall, shop!, back to cinnamon lake where my dad's parents are there & my brother, sister in law & twins are also, eat dinner, give older girls a bath b/c they are so stinkin' dirty!, go to fireworks, come home, chat a bit while watching decorating shows, sleep, wes up early to canoe on the lake with my brother, i get up at 9 a.m. (again, oooh yea), breakfast (asiago bagel), pack like crazy & drive back to westerville, arriving at noon exactly. there you have it! (the rest is just boring boo-ha-ha.)

here is a hot air balloon lift-off, for all those who are not from ashland, ohio.

i believe there were 28 balloons this year(??) which seemed like a lot at the time...they just kept filling up & lifting off! adeline was over the top excited about it all, especially when pop-pop took her to see them up close. of course, she wanted to take a little ride in the balloon, which they do, but she wasn't tall enough or something. at any rate, it's a pretty fun time with little ones.

& i just love to give you cute pictures of my kids. so here's another.

& this was addy's 'job' all weekend: take stones from the ground, place them on the outdoor table. it was hard, dirty work but she did it anyway.

all 4 grand babies prior to the fireworks. as you can see, they were eating & chloe & zoe had these adorable white shirts on...so to eat, they were topless. if you have a kid, you know you've done this. what i'm not posting is a picture of the girls down to their skivvies running inside. imagine it, b/c it's a keeper. (for parents)

let me just say that driving even 90 minutes north drops the temperature 10 degrees. it was such a nice, cool weekend. i know it was cool in columbus as well, but this was even better. (sorry mom & dad, not enough to make us move). it was a fun weekend with my family...adeline has cemented her twin cousins as her first best friends in the whole wide world & amelia is trying her hardest to keep up with them.

which brings me to an amelia milestone announcement: she is now climbing up entire flights of stairs. age 10 months. when the 3 older girls were getting their bath, amelia heard the goings-on upstairs & she high tailed it up there (thankfully wes saw her starting & was close behind...but she didn't falter once). what a gal, that amelia.

anyway, we took the 3 oldest to the fireworks at ashland. the fireworks were good, not red-white-&-boom good, but small town ohio good & what's best is that you don't have to wade through crowds of people. we actually parked at the hawkins (a grocery store, for all you non-ashlanders) parking lot & sat on the surrounding grass (yea, by claremont). we were 'those people' but we wanted to ensure a quick exit in case chloe or zoe became frightened (last year, one of them was so scared! & this year chloe still shook from fear of the noise (maybe?), but didn't cry & calmed down quickly). anyway, we were classy, make no doubt about it. functional; that's what we were.

so, thanks mom & dad, for letting me sleep in until 10 & buying especially for me the asiago bagels from buehlers. yum yum.

***

& today we had a play date with a family down the street. they have two girls who are each a few months older than ours. how convenient! & i just have to say, it's great when to meet another family who's in the same boat as we are. 2 girls, dogs, etc. it's just sort of like holding a mirror up, ya know? well, adeline & her counterpart had a fantastic time together, when they did decide to play which each other. we didn't observe any fights, but we did let them play about 50 yards away in a sandbox together (we walked to a nearby park, did i mention that?) & i did see addy throwing sand, but there were not tears shed from the sand throwing.

amelia & her counterpart crawled around the ground, each eating their share of mulch, grass, sand, & dirt. it took about 3 minutes before the moms were comfortable enough to stick our fingers in the other baby's mouth to pull out an object. then the babies would try to climb & do the slides...all good stuff.

& my counterpart & i chatted it up about many things...from feminism & raising two girls to long hospital stays (hers was while pregnant with #2, mine coming up) to husbands who drive bomber old cars (& not the cool, run-on-veg-oil kind, either, sadly) & do cost analysis for nearly everything they purchase to growing plants in our neighborhood, where there is hardly any full sun (due to old, giant, & beautiful trees). she had some great advice about the upcoming separation between myself & the girls, from experience (she went to work one day & never returned home for over 6 weeks! can you imagine being in the hospital that long?! on bed rest?! while pregnant w/ hospital food?! gah!!).

then we come home for lunch. all is well, amelia is snoozing away but addy decides not to take a nap. not a big deal. somehow she snuck past me reading in the playroom & made her sneaky way downstairs to the kitchen. finally, as i'm drying my eyes after finishing the book thief (oh my goodness, a great book!), i hear some clanking of silverware. i hear an ever so faint beeping coming from our fridge. *crap* addy is downstairs. i decide not to get worked up, what could she be into already? wrong mama, wrong.
i found the blueberry monster in my kitchen. i think her hands, feet, & face were blue for quite some time after this (as is the grout in this tile & part of the carpet in the living room where she apparently briefly ate her find). these are the frozen packaged blueberries, not the tub-o-blueberries that we have sitting in the fridge. now those wouldn't have been so messy! but nope, she chose the messy, frozen version. that's just adeline, i suppose.

our day, in reverse!

why don't the pictures upload in order?! grrr.
so i guess we are showing you our day, in reverse. deal with it *smile*

SO! here is amelia in her new car seat! she was STOKED. she smiled & giggled & flapped her arms & legs the entire 5 minute car ride.

we laundered money by buying gift cards at giant eagle (a grocery store, for all you idahoans) & being part of their 'card club' gives us money off of gas. last week i filled up the tank for FREE! just for buying gift cards for things we already buy. does that make sense? anyway, we call it the gerbickian money laundering scheme. brilliant. ANYWAY.

amelia seems to have suddenly grown up this past week. it's amazing to see the differences. i think we're just more shocked than sad at this point. she is fully mobile on all fours, but you knew that already. she's pulling up on things & you knew that. but what you didn't know is that today she started to toddle around! you know, by grabbing ahold of something, like an ottoman or the water table (outside plastic sink-ish thing that i highly recommend getting for a preschooler & toddler). then she's putting a spoon in her mouth (with nothing on it, of course...but this is a purposeful move on her part). she's holding her own bottle if given the chance (meaning we flail our hands around & sing "you hold it, amelia, i can't hold it. then she looks at me very closely & puts her wee hands around the bottle). i won't go into any more detail, but the gist is: amelia is ready to grow up. "enough of this baby stuff"

slide! (notice the tongue sticking out; for concentration?)

me looking chipper (btw: i found this dress last night at ann taylor loft for $25! oh yea)

swing!

is this not a cute kid?!

sneeze!

& why is addy sneezing? well, our luck has ended. all 3 girls have come down with a cold. a nose-dripping, sore throat-burning, super-sneezing virus. UGH. amelia has it the worse by far. poor wee one, teething & sick. addy wouldn't give me a goodnight kiss tonight b/c of the kleenex stuffed up my nose (at least my nose isn't dripping all over the place, which was happening just prior to the kleenex nose plugs).

this is a memorial in a park down the street (where we took the 5 minute car ride to). it has a flag for each military person who is/has been from westerville. or at least that's how i understood it! anyway, i think there's around 2,000 flags flappin' around.

it was pretty impressive to see this, esp when you drive by it. so many flags. when we walked through them tonight, i started to get a bit weepy reading the messages on some of the cards attached to eat flag, naming the service man/woman who it represents. more than a dozen or so that i read were about those killed while in combat/deployed (some going back to WW1, but still!).

as some of you may know, i align myself more with the liberal view of things...but one thing i am very adamant about is supporting the military & soldiers. (not that liberals don't, but it seems that is the idea going around by some...*ahem* my brother, lol!). my view of the military just may have something to do with my brother, who was in the army special forces & deployed to iraq for 18 months! but i also think what these soldiers give up--possibly their life--is amazingly brave/heroic/awe-inspiring. sometimes i just stop during the day & think to myself that there is a war going on right now (two wars?) & here i am, doing my daily thing.

when my brother was deployed i was working some crappy call center job (during college, ya know?) & i had been sick on & off that summer so i took most of my sick days & vacation days (b/c i was sick with strep throat nearly constantly! ugh). so when i asked to have a non-paid day off to see my brother off to iraq, the wouldn't give it to me! i had to just call it off, risking getting fired (thankfully my supervisor really liked me & talked the higher-ups out of it). my point is that it seems a good majority of americans don't even think about the losses military folks go through. not just death, but the actual missing of a family member for so long. the anxiety that goes along with being in a war, then waiting for your loved one to call/write, then coming home...there's so much that non-military folks don't think about & if you've never known someone close to you who's been deployed, you may not understand. but we should!

i guess what i'm trying to say is that especially during a war time, shouldn't every day be memorial day? veterans day? do we have to be reminded?

amelia playing in the water table.

today wes & i were trying to put our mulch out & adeline was being very very naughty & spent nearly half of her life this morning in time out. i couldn't take it anymore, so off we went to babies r us to buy a water table. & her AND amelia are smitten with their new toy.

i also purchased them a bubble blower machine-thingy. very snazzy.

the two girlies getting along! playing with each other! amazing.

amelia followed me wherever i went in the yard. under the swing, through the dirt & grass. around dog poo. everywhere.

gazing at the fluttering bubbles. pure childhood joy.

is amelia floating away? :o)

& that is our smarty-pants trying to eat a bubble. her face said "gross" once she caught it.

& this is the first day for bathing suits this year. although, i couldn't find (until just 2 minutes ago) addy's from her first summer--meaning amelia's now-- so we squeezed millie into this 2 piece 0-3 month bathing suit. poor kid, i thought her head was going to pop off.

amelia found our basket of pine cones (from christmas! i know, i know, lazy) & she was ecstatic about this discovery & made a very big mess indeed. at least it forced us to do something about the basket of pine cones, eh?

& this was only one day! we have two more parties/bbq's to attend this weekend...should be fun!

& now wes & i are going to have a home brew under the hop hut (his version of heaven-on-earth, my version of being eaten alive my mosquitoes *smile*)

the mom's day

well well, it was mother's day today, eh? so here's my top 10 (15? 5?) things about being a mom:

1. i have very animated purposes in life now (you know, adeline & amelia)

2. i have a front row seat to seeing two amazing little girls grow from birth (well, in utero as well).

3. never to i find myself twiddling my fingers thinking "what is there to do, i have nothing to do...?"; i always have something to do.

4. i get to teach these girls things about life, love, politics, jesus, friendship, etc etc...this is daunting & also very awe-some.

5. i know so much more about myself now that i'm a mom (such as, i have much less patience than wes does but i can calm both girls down faster than wes! hahaHA!)

6. everyday i get to help make memories for my girls; right now, i'm even a main character in their lives. ya know, i'm the BOMB to them, right? (well, unless adeline is being naughty, then she doesn't so much like me).

7. i can feel super-human after some days...those days when at the end of the day i am mystified as to how i am still sane, awake, & in a half-good mood. not even mentioning the fact of growing two babes in my uterus, then delivering those wiggly babies. now that is pretty darn super-human (but a very regular occurrence in this world, but it still is amazing, each & every birth).

8. i have leaned how to multi-task even more than before not being a mom...AND i have learned how to use every part of my body. even the pinky toe has a purpose beyond general balance.

9. having wee ones has also taught me to appreciate the daily things more & to also pay close attention to the small things, such as a bird chirping/flying or a neighbor walking by (we MUST say hi, right) or to smell a dandelion in the sidewalk or to love something so much (ie: going to the park) that you are willing to cry & flail around for an hour b/c you are so sad that it didn't happen...

10. i have learned that naked baby butts are very adorable indeed.

11. taking care of the environment & our national issues (politics, terrorism, social security, health care, etc) is more important to me now than ever before. i want my girls to have a stable future, right?

12. somehow taking care of a dog seems so simple when compared with a kid. sorry griswold, to think at one point i thought you were difficult!

13. i never thought i would get so excited over a new dryer. (but it dried a full load of clothes in 31 minutes today! i can hardly fold the last load fast enough!)

14. staying in pj's all day isn't as wonderful as it may sound, especially when it's the 5th day in a row (& yea, sometimes in the same pj's all 5 days, lol).

15. playing the game "guess what bodily fluid that stain could be" is actually sorta fun.

16. a trip to the grocery store with 2 young kids can last about 2 hours (during which most every person who passes us in the aisle will stop & give us either an annoyed grimace or a aren't-you-so-cute smile. we are no longer able to be ignored as strangers with 2 kids in a store, we are highly visible).

17. going to bed at 9 p.m. isn't luxurious, it's necessary.

18. i know at least 2 dozen kids book by memory but can't stinkin' remember where i put my phone/keys/water bottle or to put my shoes on or what my home phone number is or what amelia's birth date is (yes, this is a sad development in my days as a mother. i keep giving out the wrong birth date! i say 8/24/08. it's actually 8/26/08. DOI!)

19. i now see the full amazing-ness of my husband as a father/husband/provider.

20. having an emotionally conflicted day is totally normal & in no way should be mistaken for mental health problems. lol.

adeline & grandma sue sitting at the new kid's picnic table. yes, that would be my 6 foot tall MIL sitting under a tiny kid table! that's love, i tell ya.

millie shoveling it (food) in

on other amelia news: she's crawling! it's not the zippy fast crawl yet, but she is no longer doing a few knee jerks here & there; she's crawling, getting into everything, chasing her sister (slowly, but still chasing). so far today she has knocked over a glass of water, tangled herself up in a cord, pulled another cord out of the socket, knocked over an adeline lego structure, emptied addy's snack bowl, followed adeline out of our bedroom & into the bathroom where she then tried to eat a diaper, pulled plastic paint drop cloths onto herself, played in the mud outside, tried to climb onto the slide outside, got lost in the tall grass outside. basically: she's mobile! we're really enjoying it so far. but it's been a bit difficult to remember to shut the gates again (we just have them at the top & bottom of the stairs, though). it was so adorable watching her concentrate on moving her limbs in synch today, then BAM it just happend & off she went.

stupid me: i grabbed the camer, opened it & pushed the 'record' button at the same time, then after amelia was finished crawling hit the 'record' button again to end the recording...& then started actually recording. meaning, we could have gotten some of amelia's first true crawling moments on tape, but i was too idiotic & didn't actually record it.

hhh...

21. accept that when it comes to electronics, there is a reason god put me with wesley.

so for lunch today we gave adeline the plates & asked her to take them to the table...this is the table she chose, her picnic table. so i had a wonderful mother's day lunch outside on our porch squished under a kid table. it was perfect!

& this was addy's response this morning when i told her it was mama's day: "MO! MO! MO!! addy-d! addy-d!" translation: no! no! no! addy day, addy day. i know she loves me by her actions not by her words *smile*

now i'm off to eat my mother's day dessert: chocolate lava cake with whipped cream & ice cream & hot fudge (don't be jealous *wink*).