better late than never

 i only got half of our easter pictures up, so here are the rest. i realize they're basically all of the same thing, i just couldn't choose. i'm sorry if its boring, but when i go back and look at our blog 20 yrs from now, i wont' mind! so after our big family brunch and easter egg hunt on saturday, we decided not to have more company on sunday afternoon, so it was just us, mom and bob. our sunrise service was moved inside :-(. but thats ok. it ended up being a beautiful day.

thank you guys for making the effort to come and be with us! we loved sharing this most special of all holidays with you again, it meant so much to have you here.

 i'm pretty sure charlies saying, uh, mommy, do you know my diaper is so soggy its squishing out my pants?!?

if you've tried to take pictures of multiple children before, you know most of them turn out like this!

 its so windy here nearly all the time, you'll lose your easter bonnet if it isn't attached!

 so i may even say this, unfortunately, was our best family picture :-). at least we tried!

 so last weekend, i got the most amazing mothers day gift of a day in the big city of wichita, with friends. friends! i can honestly say i don't know if i've ever done that. i've tried to make friends, but when you move so much, stay busy having babies, etc, i just haven't "hung out with friends" much. But this was wonderful. A pedicure (which is a yearly event, approximately!), lunch at jasons deli, and target. all in one day! thank you patrick! and my friends. So, patrick stayed very busy, taking the kids fishing. quite the undertaking. we've decided perhaps ours are a little too young. but i think they had fun!

 our temperatures have been all over the place for the last few months, we had 2 days that were upper 90s, 100+. So, we broke out the baby pool. It was fun, getting kind of small for both my kids, though!

 this is charlies bathing suit from last year. its 12 mos. i was hoping it might finally fit by now!

 bedhead, anyone?

 patricks cousin denton graduated from highschool, and they held his party on their farm. only 20 mos, but i tell you what, don't get between a boy and his tractor! :-)

 this is my toddler after a long, hot day. ok, it was actually only noon. but it sure seemed like a long day. he just wasn't in a photo op mood!

Things are going well in the Crisp household. We've gotten through 2 full wks of babysitting fulltime, and i feel much more confident than i did. I remember a  few years ago when i did my "day in my life" post. i think i felt busy then. its a good thing you grow into things. if you had told me then what my life would look like now. . . Although sometimes I would like to sleep in, stay in our pyjamas at least until 9, my personality does work better being busy and productive. So being forced to be ready for the day by 8 is good, most of the time :-). We're done with breakfast by 8.30, and the kids (there are 5 now) play in the living room while i clean up and do any urgent business. Then we often head out to the porch for story time on the swing. The two big girls and I read, and the 3 toddlers play. We head down to the basement for circle time, get our blanket out and sit on the floor and do silly preschool things that they love. Then the 2 older ones and I sit at the table and work on a few pages out of their books. Well thats the idea, but the other ones always choose then to fuss and squawk and bite each other :-). And also all climb on my (ever shrinking) lap at the same time. But we get through it. Then my youngest charge leaves for the day, and the rest of us eat lunch. During quiet time, I do lunch clean up, get some work done on the computer, and some house work if i'm lucky. After quiet time we do a fun activity like puzzles, games, or painting. Then we often go outside to play, and/or work on supper prep. I do my grocery shopping in the evening now, and housework, well, whenever i can. I am working for 6 more weeks, so hopefully we'll have a really good routine down before the baby.

The midwife is coming for our home visit this Saturday. I dont' know if its because its the third, because we haven't found out what it is, because i simply don't have time to think about it. But i dont' think it seems all that real to me just yet. The pregnancy part does, just not the going to have a new infant in the family part! Patrick is staying very busy, he's been working on the yard every weekend, it looks so good! He crushed his finger between two 70lb boulders in the process of making a border for the flowerbeds, and broke it. There was also quite the gash, so we went and got him stitched up and all that, too. He's getting more involved in choir/worship at our church, and is starting a mens bible study. very exciting. i sort of started teaching someone the violin, too. You know the options must be limited if he asked me: i don't even have one, and i haven't really played in years. but we'll see how it goes.

Kids are doing so well, I know charlie is really growing up because he's started throwing tantrums :-). If i hadn't done this before, I'd be really worried. When he gets so mad that he's arching his back and nearly throwing himself out of my arms. But he's such a sweet boy, and learning words all the time. (Go, car, shoe, boot, hat, cup, ball, cow, down, choo choo, bowl, mommy, daddy, Hannah, Hadley, August are just a few). Hannah is growing in so many different ways as well. She can write most of her letters without help, and numbers as well. She is retaining alot of what I tell her. (preface: remember that we have no problem at all with "brainwashing" our kids. we feel that's actually our purpose as their parents). Today we were talking about my taking maternity leave, to rest. Hannah asked if Daddy was too. I said no, he has to work. She says very seriously, yes, Daddy has to work to make money. Lots of money. To give it all away to other people. (this is something we are recently really trying to practice, not just preach). Then she turns to Mia, the older girl, and says, do you do that too? And Mia says yep, we give all our money away to the people at the bank. I didn't know whether to laugh because it was so cute, or cry because I'm so touched by whats happening in Hannah's little heart!

Hannah loves school, and enjoys practicing writing. she used her nifty white board to draw some numbers the other day.

we inherited a tiger costume the other day, which the kids love. one of the things i really want to have is a good dress up box. so much fun!

 no, we don't actually let her mow the lawn. but anything and everything patrick does, especially outside, she wants to help. it we can have the patience to let them "help", we'll have some great real helpers as they get older!

 we enjoyed a surprise visit from Sorani, our old midwife, who attended me with charlie's birth. she happens to be good friends with our current midwife. small world. smaller, actually, because the midwife i'm seeing right now is from the small town where my mom lives, in canada. anyways, sorani was in town visiting, so got to see her. it's part of what makes it so special to me, they really care how we're doing, how the kids are growing, and that she made the effort to stop by. i occasionally talk to my first one, too.

 any guesses as to what my son is begging for in this picture?

 red peppers. he had a fistful of red pepper strips, and just kept shoving them in. its strange, they'll eat nearly anything if its off the counter, while i'm cooking. put him in the highchair and put it in a bowl and he'll throw it on the floor! he's definitely a very picky eater these days. the other day i left him screaming in his highchair for 45 min, because he refused to eat his carrots. i finally just put him to bed (he fell asleep in the rocking chair :-), and then he ate the carrots happily when he woke up. soooooo stubborn!

but oh so cute! honestly!

 

the other day, Mom hannah and i headed up to another town for a special girls day. (this is where i go to the orthodontist. also has a starbucks, target, hobby lobby, bookstore, sprinkler park, and a really cute downtown with a few boutique shops and restaurants. alas, we don't live there.) there is also a family children's theatre, and we went to a play on the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Hannah really enjoyed it, keeps asking to go back. she sat still so well. We also visited Patricks Grandpa Alvin in the hospital, where he had to stay for 2 wks, after a throat surgery. but he's home now, and healing.

 

 we topped off our day with special dinner out at chilis. you should have seen hannah's face when she saw the desert we split. that girl loves her chocolate. and that's definitely nature, not nurture! i guess some things get passed down wether you want them to or not. right, mom? :-)

 yes, more food. on Good Friday we went up to another town that had an outdoor good friday service. we were a little early, so we got lunch. Its primarily an Amish/Mennonite community, so the restaurant had alot of pie. hannah got her own piece. (it came home in a takeout box and i threw it away yesterday :-)

 one of patricks relatives had this overgrown go cart deal in haviland, and he drove the kids around in it. charlie was very serious and cautious the whole time, but then when i took him out he threw a fit and tried to climb back in. he's going to be all boy!

we had fried chicken at grandma jans this weekend, finished off with cherry cobbler. of course charlie would eat nothing but rolls, so he was all about dessert.

i like fried chicken and pie, i really do. but sometimes my tongue wants something different, too :-). i'm getting the inkling that many people think Asian food = soy sauce. i'd like to debunk that myth, as even in my very basic chinese food, i find the above items essential. sesame oil, chili garlic sauce, hoisin, rice vinegar, and ponzu. and yes, i can get all of them here! and that's just chinese food. thai is a whole nother set of flavours. but patrick said we've had enough asian for awhile :-).

i did manage to squeeze in some lettuce wraps, though. messy, but soooooo good. made me want the cheesecake factory. they have the best lettuce wraps there.

i was the only one in the family to enjoy this one, my quinoa broccoli chickpea salad.  oh well.

i fnally tried tagine, or my version of it. i made it once with apricots, and once with raisins. pretty good.

charlie's on a cow kick right now. any animal is a cow. i wish i could upload video, so you could hear him emphatically contradict me when i say, no, horse. COW. horse. COW. its pretty funny.

so, tomorrow i start babysitting fulltime. we'll have 2 extra girls all day, and one little boy in the mornings. we'll get into a routine, then i'm taking 6 wks maternity leave. Next year i'll be doing preschool with Hannah and the other big sister. I read a letter to the editor, or a send us your questions thing, in cooking light the other day. The person said, I am a mother of a 2yr old, and i dont have time to make supper. A 2yr old, as in only one child. When i think about two 4yr olds (who i'm trying to homeschool), two 2yr olds, and a nursing infant, i start to hyperventilate just a little. soooo, if you think the bloggings been sporadic thus far, expect it to get worse! we'll see how things go. i'm going to be super duper organized. at least that's the plan :-)