Just for fun!

Fun for some and not so much for others...

It is hard being the middle child.  Every day I try to remind myself to pay more attention to Esther than I have.  Her world has been turned upside down since Maggie was born.  She is trying really hard to find her new role.  She is not so gentle with Maggie and often just lays on her because she wants to hold her. Maggie on the other hand does not like being held down, so she cries and wiggles out as soon as she can instead of melting into Esther's arms, as Esther would like.  Then Esther cries and says that Maggie does not like her... So sad... However, we had a break through the other day.  Esther fell and started crying.  Maggie crawled to her and gave her a hug by putting her little arms around her and leaning her head into Esther's shoulder. It was a happy moment for all!

Of course Maggie continues with her house explorations which needless to say create a lot of extra picking up.

Every child is different...

Maggie has been getting into our cupboards for the last three months.  She goes through them a few times when I am in the kitchen and sometimes completely on her own.  My biggest fear is that I would step on one of the plastic containers unexpectedly and sprain an ankle.   I don't remember Esther being so eager to open those doors and getting through the contents over, and over, and over...  She might have opened the doors once or twice, but never come back for more.  Samuel on the other hand was more like Maggie.  He was IN the cupboards.  He would empty them, climb in, and then close the door behind him.  Climbing stairs is another place where they differ.  Maggie loves to climb them, and I am already trying to teach her how to get down from them.  With Esther I did not have to do that until she learned how to walk, which was at 18 months.  Esther, however, was a talker.  I remember her saying words when she was one.  It is so interesting to see them all develop at different rates.   Love it!

Do you know who you are?

There's never been a better time to be a woman.  Today women are present in all walks of life, and the world can truly appreciate and benefit from the power of a woman's determination.  Still, the most important roles that we have are the ones in our own homes, within the families we create.  Which on the other hand should not be the limit of our contributions to the world.  

 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

Sharing the piano

As soon as Samuel or Esther start practicing the piano, Maggie stops whatever she is doing and crawls over to the study.  She also wants to practice:).  Both older kids have been so good about letting her press on the keys.  Samuel actually closes the door to make sure that she stays there even if it means that he can hardly hear what he is playing.  This is a tender moment for a me.  There is nothing like seeing my children loving each other in little ways.

Early voting for me...

This is what Samuel wrote last year while in first grade. 

This great country of ours needs another chance at being great again!  We have been given many freedoms, protections, and opportunities which can be found only in the USA. They make this country exceptional, and therefore it cannot mimic any other country's social, political, or military road. I hope we all exercise our great right, even privilege, to vote!

Thomas Peterffy - Freedom To Succeed

A friend forwarded this to me.  It is an ad by a private citizen, an immigrant from Eastern Europe who has been able to succeed in this great country by nothing else but his hard work and persistence.  His message rang so true to me that I could not hold back and not share it.

Esther's 5th Birthday

Our beautiful and smart Esther turned five a couple of weeks ago!  Her actual birthday fell on Labor day this year, just like the day she was born on.  Her day started out with her favorite breakfast which is crepes with Nutella, then she opened her gifts, played with them, and in the afternoon we went to her favorite summer place: the splash park pool.  Since daddy was out of town, we had a Birthday party with her friends the following Saturday.

These are some of the things Esther likes in her great fifth year:
Favorite color:  rainbow (we did not know either such a color existed before she came along);
When she grows up she will be: a gymnast;
Favorite thing to do: go to school (I would add: she loves to color, do crafts, and build puzzles.).
Her favorite food: crepes.

The theme for her party was Olivia - the energetic, resourceful, curios, and independent cute piglet.  The last Olivia book is hilarious.  We now have all the original Olivia books by Ian Falkoner.  We have Half Price Books to thank for that.  The girls strung a candy neckless, painted, colored, and played musical chairs.  Later we had lunch, read a couple of the Olivia books and of course we had cake! Esther had a happy day...

Last year I did not post about her Birthday.  I was very pregnant then.  Esther wanted to have her 4th Birthday party at Chuck-e-Cheese.  That is what her brother wanted to do, so consequently that is what she wanted to do.

Beach Time

A few weeks before school started, we rented a beach home off of Blue Water Highway near the San Luis Pass County Park.  The neighborhood, called Treasure Island, sits a half a mile before the toll bridge connecting the park to Galveston island.  The area is on a peninsula and on both sides all that can be seen is ocean.  It was beautiful and only an hour and twenty minutes away from home.  We loved it!  There is hardly anything commercial around.  Not even a grociery store. Just water, sand, pelicans, seagulls, and us.  The ocean water was still brown (the Coriolis Effect makes the water carrying sediment from the Mississippi to veer toward the TX beaches), but it was warm. We could not keep our little Maggie away from it.  She tightens her whole body rigidly when she touches cold water, like she did on the Caribbean ocean, but she loved the Gulf water.  As my dad would say, it is as warm as tea.

In all honesty our beach vacation was fun and rejuvenating, but not necessarily relaxing.  After all, we did have our three little children with us, and those of you who have taken vacations with little children know exactly what I mean.  They loved being in a different home and thought it was as good as a castle.  They kept coming in and out of rooms and showing us every little nook and cranny they discovered.

We brought our kayak with us. We could not convince Esther to get in it, but Richard and Samuel took full advantage of it.  This is our second year having it, and I still have not been in it.  The first summer I was pregnant, and now a have the little one to watch while the boys take it out.  Maybe next summer...

Aunt Rebekah visited for two of the days, and that brought even more excitement for the children.  She was the "cherry on top".


On the last night Richard built a fire on the beach, and we hurriedly had some hot dogs and smores. I say hurriedly, because we had conflicting information whether we were allowed to have fire on the beach.  We put it out as soon as we were done cooking.  A nice older gentlemen came over while the fire was still burning just to have a look.  He'd never seen a fire on the beach before... It was a good fire. Probably too much so for our own good. Throughout the day Richard and the two kids spent a good hour gathering wood from the beach and getting it ready by drying it.  Once lit, the fire was blazing!

The weather was great also -  neither rain nor scorching heat.  The whole country has been plagued by the hottest summer on record, but here in the Houston area, we are having the best summer weather since we've lived here.

The only disappointment about the trip was that I missed an opportunity to take a close-up picture of the pelicans.  I learned a lesson:  Never postpone a good picture moment.

Another thing about traveling with little ones is that you have to bring so much stuff just!!!