Days 173 and 174 ~ Weekend Wrap Up with PHOTOS!

This weekend was amazing.  The weather was gorgeous, and a true blessing.

Saturday, everything fell into place to make Keira's second birthday party an absolute joy.

Sunday, I spent the morning doing a really cool photo shoot.  I can not wait to share those photos, but I do have the awesome memories of Keira's party to share with you.

Thank you to all that came out to celebrate the birth of my little girl.  It means so much to me.

Dear Keira On Your Second Birthday

Happy Birthday to my sweet little girl!

Keira, I sit here and am honestly blown away that two years have gone by so quickly.  It seems like yesterday when you made your way into this world.  You were a perfect baby.  And it equally seems like yesterday when I was celebrating your first birthday, and wondering how that first year slipped by in fast forward.  Now you are two.  I feel like if I go to sleep, I may wake up and find you are 18.

In the past year you have grown from my precious, sweet baby into a cherished, fun, wonderful little girl.  You have mastered walking and running and climbing and jumping, dancing and singing and talking, and even scolding your brothers when you think they have done something wrong.  (That is probably a trait they wish you did not do just yet, or ever.)

You want to do everything your brothers can do.  If they are playing baseball, or basketball, you need to play too, only you want to do it in your princess shoes, carrying your purse, and holding your baby.  I love watching the way your brothers play so carefully with you.  They cheer you on and clap for you.  It makes my heart fill with joy to watch these interactions.

Your personality has come into full force this past year.  You are loving, and caring.  When one of your brothers gets hurt, you gently rub their back or face and ask if they are okay.  You wake up  and go to bed making sure you hug and kiss each member of our family, including the Bella and Liberty.
You are funny.  You like to do silly dances when you are happy, wiggling your bum and laughing.  You make silly faces and change your voice.  You like to have an audience.
You are empathetic.  If you see someone sad, you immediately feel sad, and tell me in a sad voice that the other person is upset.  You get particularly upset if you see a photo of you crying from when you were a baby.  You tell me stories about why you were sad, and they are always different and extravagant.  Those make me giggle.
You are curious and daring.  You want to try everything for yourself, and want to conquer whatever the task may be.  You are not afraid to do something new.  You have a determined spirit that wants to see every task through, always finishing what you started.
Keira, at two years old, you love to color.  You could color for hours.  You love to read books.  Princess or horse themed books are your favorite, but you are happy with any book.  You love to snuggle up under a blanket with a good book.  I look forward to someday relaxing on a beach with you, reading books together.  You absolutely must have your nails painted at all times.  If your nails are bare, you will run up to me exclaiming "uh-oh!!" and then you will run, grab some nail polish and force me to stop what I am doing and paint them.  Then you blow on your nails and wave your hands in the air.  (I told you that you are funny.)  And lately, thank the lord, you are in love with having your hair played with and braided and brushed.

You are still a little peanut.  Sometimes your dad and I wonder about how tall you will be.  You will undoubtedly have towering older brothers (much to your dad's delight), but we think you will remain our teeny tiny girl.  Only time will tell, right?

Speaking of your dad, oh Keira, to see you with him is just about the best thing in the world.  You love your dad more than anything.  And in return, you are the twinkle in his eye. 

Keira I could go on and on about you.  You are my baby girl, and always will be.  You are the princess in the family.  I can not imagine what our lives would be like without you.  You add such a wonderful dynamic to our family.  You have so many people who love you so very much.
I am pretty emotional about you turning two.  I get sad that you are growing up.  I know that this next year you will grow and mature even more.  I love the little person that you are, and are ever becoming.  I am so excited and honored to see you grow and experience and live your life.  I am so thankful I am your mother.  You are truly a gift to this world, Keira.

I love you more than words could ever say, Keira.  I hope you have a very happy second birthday.

Love,
Mommy

Day 113

There are moments of quiet in my house.  Moments being the key word here.  I have learned not to draw attention to these moments.  I have learned that although I may suddenly realize them, I should do anything but draw attention to them.  I should instead savor them.

Today, while Brody was busy playing with his Transformers, and while Nate was hard at work on his latest Lego model, and while I was sitting at the table, planning meals, Keira climbed up on the table with her princess books, and found herself a reading nook right inside our fruit bowl.  I looked up and just swooned at the view.

I am grateful for quiet moments.

Day 99

Today I caught up on ten thousand loads of laundry.

I may be exaggerating a little bit.

So because I had such an exciting day, I thought I'd share this little tid bit.

Each and every night while I get ready to make dinner, Keira picks up on this time to eat cue, gets in her chair, and begins screaming "I'm HUNGRY" in the most starving child-mom you never give me food-kind of way.  When I tell her each and every night it will be ready soon, she pouts and gets mad at me.

I think I'm in trouble with her.

Day 98

Maybe the downer feeling I had yesterday was due to some little bug.  I woke up with a migraine that hasn't quit.  It is defiant and cruel, fighting ibuprofen.  But today had to be productive.  It had to.  With a week full of things scheduled in, and a major snow storm predicted to hit smack in the middle of the week, I just had no choice.  I bundled up the kids like little Eskimos, and layered myself as best as I could under my non winter jacket.
It is below zero here folks.  Not errand running weather.

But we did it.  We accomplished a crap load, and hopefully each day will get better and better.

Until then, enjoy Keira's yoga poses with me.

 and don't you worry about those goldfish on the ground... I cleaned them up.

Day 84

 Day 84 was a filled to the brim one.  Today, although it could have been a disaster, seeing as how I couldn't sleep in the middle of the night, and got caught up watching The Prince and Me at quarter of three, not going to sleep until it was over sometime after four am, and having both Brody and Keira in my bed, both arms falling asleep as they both snuggled as close as close could be (don't get me wrong, I love snuggling these two, sometimes it just is a bit hard falling back asleep, and can be a bit crowded.),  and because Ty and Nate were having a rough time getting along in the morning, and my house felt dirty to me, so I spent the whole morning cleaning and scrubbing an mopping, I somehow salvaged those feelings and exhaustion and turned it into a wonderful day.

After cleaning, I decided to put up Valentine's Day decorations, (which I always forget to do until two days before V-Day,) I gathered the kids to make a cute Valentine's Day project to hang up.  Each child had four hearts to color and decorate as they saw fit, and I made two larger hearts, one to go at each end.  We strung those together on a string, and voila! A cute decoration.

Brody and Keira decided to put on a funny performance, which made me laugh

Keira and I painted our nails a pretty purple color.

I actually got two french braids in Keira's hair, which may or may not look like corn rows, but I did it!

And the kids and I finished off the day with a major Just Dance session, and then some Kinect bowling.

Everyone crashed fairly early and the day felt warm and fuzzy and cuddly to me at the end.

 

Brody and Keira's performance.

  

Our V-Day craft

  

Keira's braids... hey, I tried!Don't judge please, remember I have had three boys.

  

Brody was in rare form.  Or not so rare actually.

Live long and prosper.  Have I ever told you how much I loved Star Trek:The Next Generation when I was younger?  I am a total dork.  I hate my hand in pictures, so I had to do something weird.  Pretty purple color though, right?

Day 79

This is what I did today.  (Besides the normal razzle dazzle of life filled with four kids and running errands and cleaning ~ okay there was not much of that this day~ and what have you.)

But today, I made clothes.  Namely a cute little apron knot dress for Keira.  I used three different fabrics (the main retro circle fabric for the dress, striped fabric for trim and straps and ruffles around the apron, and the funky flower/stripes for the apron.)
I found a pattern, but it was for size 6/7. I worked out what a size 12-18 months would be and voila!
Not perfect by any means, but I am very proud that I made and article of clothing.
Truth be told it was not as hard as I thought it would be, and now I feel like the possibilities are endless.

I may or may not have already found a bajillion new patterns.

I will probably soon need an intervention.

Can I get a woop woop for addictive personalities?