Their Sunday Best

My family has loads of pictures of my sister and me as tots in our little dresses on Sunday morning.  It must have been a tradition for a little while. :)  I've recently started trying to do the same with my girlies, partly because of all the pictures of Heidi and me and partly just because they look so sweet in their dresses and wear them for such a comparatively short time!  

I have found, however, that it is much, much easier to get one girl at a time, however! (Who is surprised? heh.)

On this particular Lord's Day, I happened on Ruthie at the little play kitchen, unnoticed at first.

Loved the light!  And yet her face was in a shadow, so I tried luring her over toward me, and eventually just moved her around a little bit, trying to get her face in the natural light.

Perfect look!  Too bad Bio Bio Bio had to do a photo-bomb . . . 

Suddenly it feels like spring!  With daylight savings time yesterday, we were able to do our first outdoor lunch of the year.  It was a very odd day, because all the families near church and the church itself had an ice storm and lost power, but we only had a very soggy day of rain.  Church was cancelled due to the outage and some of our friends gathered in our living room with us to worship and eat outside together afterward.  It actually turned out to be quite special.

Oh, the dentist

Three years old . . . she had her first successful dentist visit this week.  Six months ago, she wouldn't open her mouth enough!  The hygienist asked if I'd read her a book about the dentist, and I felt like a failure for not evening thinking of that!  This time, when we got the reminder call, I quickly placed some dentist books on hold at the library, but they were delayed, and then the library was closed because of snow . . . yet thankfully she had matured enough to open her mouth this time!  

There was a TV in the office playing children's programs, which was quite enthralling to the child who didn't want to take off her mittens, hat or sweater.  :)

She had such a good time that she asked me when we got home if we could go back soon.  Not for a while, sweetie!  

There have been many things like that in her life recently.  Little by little, her mispronunciations are correcting themselves.  She says "walk" instead of "wot," for example.  She sits in a big-girl chair (on her knees) and puts her dish in the sink when she's done eating. Her hair is getting very long, and I'm debating trimming it for a second time.  She gives actual puckery kisses...with her tongue sticking out a little bit!  And she's getting to the point where she can talk about feelings and perceive my feelings.  Moments like that make all the discipline a bit more worth it.  

Gemma's birthday, cont'd

I mentioned that Gemma was rather overwhelmed with birthday gifts from her loving extended family :) but I thought it would also be fun to share the little something I made her for turning 3.  It's a little bath set for her baby, who has been named "Bio Bio Bio" once and for all, I believe.  :)

Poor Bio Bio Bio . . . she got dropped in a parking lot last September, and I believe that she had a rough encounter with a car.  We're just thankful that we found her after the fact!  When Gemma first saw her, she put heart stickers on her eyes, but now she has come to terms with her dolly's permanent injury.  If asked, she repeats what we explained to her: "Baby's eyes are a little broken, but she can still see!"  In public, people frequently ask if Baby is an old family hand-me-down, but she has just known that much love from Gemma in her two years of ownership!

I had some leftover terry cloth, seam bias binding, and fleece, so I put together a wee hooded towel and sponge.  These little projects just delight my heart!

I packaged them up with an empty baby bath bottle which was a hospital freebie.  The writing is coming off, but Gemma doesn't seem to mind.  :)

Whenever Gemma takes a bath, she likes to have Bio Bio Bio bathe in the upside-down bathroom stool, so I staged her this way for you.  :) Besides that, we just bought her a new pack of undershirts.  How many things does a kid need, right?  She and her sister's birthdays are both so close to Christmas, that it just makes sense to keep things simple, at least while they're little.  Maybe we'll start a tradition of taking them someplace special instead of buying them something special as they get older.  But for now, it was nice at least to spend some time making her something.  :)

Little Bear Birthday

Gemma's been three for almost three months, and just today I went back to look at the pictures from her party!  Well . . .

As promised, we planned a Little Bear party for her, based on the books by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Maurice Sendak.  They are just precious little books, and we love them!  One of the stories is called Birthday Soup, and inspired by that and this sweet theme-based celebration I found through pinterest, we planned our little party for Gemma on December 7, her actual 3rd birthday.  :)

We had birthday soup with carrots, potatoes, peas and tomatoes, of course :) and also some chicken, cream, wine and seasonings.  That was it, besides crackers, some apple slices, and a big cake, of course! 

For decorations, I put up my trusty re-used doily garland and a bunch of balloons in classic colors.  John helped me print off fun paper placemats (from here), and Grandma supplied the snowflake napkins. Nice and simple!



Gemma was eager to help with the balloons, and to make sure that her babies were properly seated and attired.  :)



I loved the idea of having the children dress up like the characters in the story!  Inspired by the blog I mentioned, I wanted to make animal ears out of felt.  Then Mom found reindeer ears at the dollar store (which were actually 2/$1) which already had felt-covered headbands.  So, I just hacked them with some scissors, hot glue, and additional felt and quickly put together headbands for Cat, Duck, Hen, and, of course, Little Bear!  They are very imperfectly done . . . but Little Bear didn't seem to mind.  :)

Two of the headbands already had feathers on them.  Perfect for Hen and Duck!  We made Duck a bill with some cardboard and yarn, too.  

Since we were in NY at the time, all of John's side of the family and my Grandma, Gemma's Great Grandma, were able to be there, which was really special.

Her Aunt Abby gave her the birthday candle when she turned 1, and we've been burning it every year!

And the checkerboard cake with chocolate buttercream was delicious, if I do say so myself.  :)

After that, we let her open presents in the living room and all the cousins played.  I was fooling with some of the settings on what was then our good camera, and had no idea what I was doing!  That's why they're grainy and weird.  I can hardly believe I was to be upgraded so quickly!  (Stop talking about your new camera, Gretchen!  Augh!)

Gemma was just showered with things . . . I kind of wish I had said "no gifts!" But she was very sweet, and very generous with her "Cockoo!"s.  She still wears her Little Bear ears all the time, so they have been well worth their 50 cents and 5 minutes of glue!  

Happy three years old, big girl!  How very quickly you are growing!

Announcing . . .

Theodoric Fritz!  

We praise our loving Father for the safe birth and recovery of mommy and baby . . . about 19 hours ago!  

We could hardly be prouder of the new gentleman in the family . . . and yet the proudest of all are clearly the new Mommy and Daddy.  :)

Family and soon-to-be-family flocked to admire the wee lad . . . 

The royal baby doll took a rest under the bassinett.  ;)

The long, tiring journey of motherhood has begun!  And what a joy it will be . . . 

Sprout is here!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!