a girl and her balloons

annika's preschool had a really sweet valentine's day party and at the end each student received a heart shaped balloon. as soon as ingrid saw annika's balloon she grabbed it and wouldn't let go. in order for annika to let ingrid have that balloon (and stop ingrid from shrieking every time annika tried to reclaim her balloon!), i told her we could go to the store and she could pick out her very own balloon the next day.

it just so happens i had all three kids the next day when we went to the store. they all got a new 99-cent heart shaped balloon and i thought "good job mom, now each kid has their own special balloon they picked out from the store and there would be no more screaming". and boy was i wrong.

ingrid continued to SCREAM unless she was holding each and every balloon. even if she had 2 of the 4 balloons she would SHRIEK until the bigs would give in and let her hold theirs. i am not sure if it was out of the goodness of their hearts or because they too couldn't take the screaming anymore, but the bigs finally caved and just let their baby sister hold all the balloons.

i am going to believe it was out of the goodness of their hearts.

xoxo, the blad pad

inside, inside and more inside

i feel bad for my kids during winter. they missed out on having a FUN outdoor winter mom. i am not a winter person. i strongly dislike winter. and this winter i particularly dislike. it has been long and brutal. so we have had a lot of this ....

and this ....

and this ....

and this ...

and every now and then we (and by "we" i mean lars and the kids) break out the outdoor stuff .....

xoxo, the blad pad

happy new year! uh, i mean, happy march!

one of my new years goals was to start blogging again. my first was supposed to be jan 1 of this year. blogging has been on my mind and in my heart for quite some time. i would often tell myself to just START, but would be distracted by something (or should i say little someones) and would push it off to later. and when later finally came, i couldn't remember my password. it took about 500 tries and a month for me to remember! and now march is upon us. i am two months behind my goal. but then again, i feel that way with much of my life as of late. so many good intentions and always taking too long to follow through. so as ingrid is napping and kids are snacking i thought this would be a perfect moment to just go for it.

so ... HI!!!

it feels good to be back. there is been quite a bit of growing since my last post which was about, ummm, 18 months ago. i am not going to go into a loooong recap of where the kids are at. i am just going to dive right in and begin where we are at today. and the big news of today is that we took away ingrid's pacifiers on friday. she had gotten into this really horrible habit of twirling her hair around the paci and then YANKING it out with all her might. a horrible sight to see ... and sound to hear. after learning that continual pulling of the hair *might* cause permanent hair loss i immediately walked around the house and threw out all her pacifiers. there is no good time like the present to quit a bad habit, right?

the first night (friday) was torture. she cried for about 1.5 hours screaming for her "gookie". she finally did fall asleep after much rocking and woke up a few times during the night. yesterday (saturday) she kept walking around the house looking for one in all the usual hiding spots. took an okay nap and then fell asleep on her own at night (surprise to me!). she was, however, up every 2 HOURS during the night. we took turns rocking her back to sleep which luckily didn't take long each time. between her being sick (cold) and huge transition without her paci i am giving her a few nights before we make her "cry it out" ... but all in all she is handling the transition like the star that she is!

and now she is up from her nap and the kids are done with their snack so i am signing off. promise it won't be 18 months until i write again .....

xoxo, the blad pad