Note: This is Mary’s second blog. You can read the first one here. I took these photos about two weeks ago, when the chicks were still cute little balls of fluff. They’ve feathered out a lot in the past two weeks and look a lot more reptilian, but the kids adore them all the same.
On my very first night home with my first baby, I was more terrified than I had ever been in my life. Jump off a bridge? Sure! Scale a rock face? No problem! But leave me alone with this tiny, beautiful person? No thank you. I had a fistful of worksheets, clinging to the vague
Last week one of the kids said, “Mom! You should write about this on your blog!” And I responded, “Do YOU want to write about it on my blog?” They said sure. This first blog is by Mary, telling the story of last week when we made homemade lemonade (which we only did because I
Every now and then it’s good to have a moment that helps you see how you’re coping. A litmus test, sort of. A gut check. For me it came during Mary’s Google meeting with her class. Mary wanted to show Brigham for show-and-tell, and when I went to get him I saw a huge gash
Week five. Is it really just week five? Doesn’t it seem like longer? And also shorter? And like we’re already well into summer but yesterday was Easter? This week, SURPRISE, Tom got strep. Now we’ve each had it twice, and I’m living in a constant state of thinking I have strep. We were talking about
I’ve been preparing for Easter for weeks. I started gathering gifts for the kids and I splurged on a Easter dress for myself. I’d get coordinating outfits for the kids later, I told myself. I’d wait to buy out Kroger’s supply of Peeps until closer to Easter, I thought. Otherwise I’d just eat them and
I’m not sure whether this week was harder or easier than the last. I can say that this week I was diligent about my news intake, and I highly recommend that to anyone who is feeling anxiety around the pandemic. It’s absolutely crucial to stay informed, but there’s a point when too much is too
We celebrated two friends’ birthdays this week. They were both distant celebrations — gifts left in the driveway, and a drive-by “party.” My kids liked loved being a part of these celebrations, but they made the wheels start turning. “I’m glad my birthday is in the summer…” I heard someone say from the backseat on
Sometime in my hours and hours of scrolling this past week (oh, I do need to get off my phone) I scrolled across a recommendation to document this time. We are living in through a historical moment in the world, and so it is worthwhile to take some time to document your days, and also your thoughts
Remember a week ago, when our kids were in school and we were carrying on with reckless behavior, like chatting over coffee or holding the door for strangers. Everything has changed, and in the past week the nation has quietly walked inside and closed their doors. (And then there are people who aren’t staying home.
Let’s take a trip back in time, shall we? Let’s go back to Monday. I had gone to sleep the night before with a bit of a sore throat, and woke up feeling like I’d swallowed a meat grinder at some point in the night. Tom had just gotten over an awful sore throat (he
It’s mid-February, which means it’s high time to talk about New Year’s resolutions! If research is correct, most people have already abandoned their resolutions. If that’s you, consider this a timely reminder to get back to it! The year is young! This year I’m making it my personal goal to reduce our family’s trash. I’ve
This Christmas season has felt more hectic than any other I can remember. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I could do differently to remove some stress, and I’ve come to the conclusion that no matter what I do, it will be hectic. Of course, I’m the first to admit that I could use
Mary started the Christmas season feeling overly burdened by the season, what with being a “Mary” and all. As if sharing a name with the Virgin Mother of the Savior wasn’t enough, her name is also a homophone with the salutation of the season: MERRY. She makes it look easy, but believe me, it is not.
Christmas morning anticipation — Tom gathers the kids on the stairs to read the Christmas story before rushing down to see presents. Before you get distracted by David and Mary’s looks of concentration, Thomas’s impish grin, or noticing that this is the first year Anna isn’t being held by one of us — before you
We spent nearly a week with my parents over Thanksgiving. My parents still live in the house I grew up in, and anytime we go back, my kids ask lots of questions about my childhood. Where was my room, which was my seat at the table, where did we play. (Answer: the room you guys
There are a great many traditions I started when I had my first baby. Almost none of them have lasted through the fourth (R.I.P. baby book intentions) Some things I’ve mostly given up on (R.I.P. baby book intentions) and other things I haven’t gotten around to, but I still hold out hope (like making a
Every morning the kids wake up way earlier than they have to. Then, for two full hours, they chase their tails until the five minutes before they have to leave for the bus when they scramble to find shoes and jackets. We have a checklist, we have alarms, we have reminders. And yet almost every
BOO! Our family had a great Halloween, but as I sit typing this my eyelids are heavy and I’m feeling judged by the spooky decorations that became unseasonable 12 hours ago. I’m already feeling the busyness of the holidays and taking it as a reminder to try to slow down and enjoy the season. Perhaps this
We have a rule in our family about Halloween. If it involves any help or purchasing from me, you must decide on your Halloween costume by October 1. (Or, in Anna’s case, her Halloween costume was decided for her six years before she was born when my mom bought David this toddler-sized dragon costume.) Komodo
When our cat was an adolescent — not a kitten, an adolescent. It’s an important distinction because kittens are adorable imps and adolescents are adorable jerks. So as I was saying, when our cat was an adolescent he spent all day being cute and all night demolishing our house. We were living in a house
Yesterday Anna, my 22-month old, was throwing a tantrum. She threw herself onto the floor, curled her body over her knees with her forehead pressed to the carpet, and wailed. “Look!” Mary exclaimed. “Anna is doing a lockdown drill!” David and Mary laughed and laughed at the absurdity of a lockdown drill! At home! Ha!
When we got home from Deer Valley, these guys were our welcoming committee. In the spring when I planted our garden, I was so excited about all the produce. I imagined big batches of roasted tomatoes every week, slices of tomatoes with every meal, and giving excess to neighbors and friends. But (maybe you’ve already
After I published my post about our week in Deer Valley, I loved how many people read the words “rustic,” “sore,” and “exhausted” and responded, “sign me up!” Oh yeah, I guess I did mention the snack bar, too. Maybe it was that? Several people messaged me saying that after they read about our experience
Eight years ago Tom and I were going to bed and I started crying and told him some version of, “He’s never going to be born and I’m going to be pregnant for the rest of my life.” About four hours later my water broke, and about 14 hours after that David was born. Little
If you’ve been around here for any amount of time you know the summer vacation drill — our family drives to a lake where we jump off the dock a thousand times, catch a catfish, and line the kids up at the end of the week for a forced cousin picture. This year we completely
For a family that doesn’t travel, we’ve been doing a lot of traveling this summer. Last week we left for our third trip of the summer, which started with a stop in Pittsburgh to visit Tom’s extended family. En route to the annual Krieger family vacation, we traveled with Tom’s parents and his brother’s family
Before we left for Vancouver we got a lot of recommendations for things to do and see, and places to eat. One thing we heard over and over was to go to Deep Cove. We went to Deep Cove on our very last day in Vancouver. We hadn’t intended it that way (Thomas’s fever day
Aside from maybe birth announcements and that one time Thomas told his preschool teacher that his favorite thing is when Mommy lets him “ride dirty in the car,” few of my posts on Instagram have had as much of a reaction as this photo of the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bzl-RzjFHMP/ All suspension bridges warrant a
One of my favorite things about our visit to Vancouver was that my sister did all the planning. She emailed me an itinerary before our visit, but I’m not the type to burden myself with pesky things like referencing a schedule. In the morning I would wake up, ask where we were going and what footwear
Steveston Village is a small harbor town close to my sister’s house. It’s so close that we technically visited it on a “home day.” (We actually went the day Thomas was sick with a fever, during Anna’s nap.) I thought about lumping Steveston in with my home day post, but ultimately decided it deserved its
We arrived in Vancouver late in the evening on Canada Day. We saw fireworks from our airplane windows when we were taxiing on the runway, and my brother-in-law drove us to his house through neighborhoods decorated with Canadian flags. It was something like 2 a.m. EST when we arrived, so my sister pointed at our
Styling by the Pacific Ocean, pigtails by Mary, photo by Grammy, Tom’s sunscreen-face by himself, entire week of adventures (including three meals a day for 14 people) planned and executed by my sister and her generous family. A few years ago, Tom mentioned that we should take a big trip to celebrate our tenth anniversary.
A few months before Mary’s birthday, she started planning her party. I generally don’t start making actual plans for her birthday until after Thomas’s birthday, but this year I made an exception. Mary is the youngest in her class, and she has been positively hungry to turn six for a long time. (She’s actually the third youngest.
Often when I’m getting ready, Mary will wander into the bathroom to be with me. She asks if she can be fancy, too, so I lift her onto the vanity and hand her a makeup brush or lip gloss wand. She gazes into the mirror quietly, studying her reflection. The corners of her mouth lift
A few weeks ago, before spring break, I got an email from Mary’s teacher. Whenever Mary’s teacher writes us emails she does this thing where the subject line of the email is just the kid’s name. So every now and then I get an email, subject “Mary” and every single time I panic. My blood
My kids had a day off school for Good Friday and we planned to spend the day, among other things, dyeing Easter eggs, and using Sweet Frog coupons they got from school. Thursday night I looked at the weather and realized we were supposed to get rain, which was frustrating because I was planning to
If you’re looking for an extreme adventure to kickstart your spring break, might I suggest the passport office? Like most adventures, this one requires a lot of prep work, document-gathering, and planning. For weeks leading up to our trip to the passport office, Tom would tell me he needed to “do passport stuff,” and he’d
Last weekend we celebrated David’s half birthday. Seven AND A HALF years old, this one. Seven and a half years is also how long it took me to come up with the tradition of putting a few pieces of birthday cake in the freezer a la the first anniversary wedding cake tradition. The white chocolate
Our Christmas tree is laying in our front yard. It sort of died after it fell down in mid-December and it started dropping a lot of needles, so getting it out of the house was a priority. We meant to deal with it immediately, but then I got mastitis and Tom got a bad cold, and we
I was grumpy all day Christmas Eve. The kids were acting like children, how dare they. They were overly excited and a little tired and do you know what excited, tired children do? They take the cushions off the couch even though their mother told them not to. They ping pong between being silly and
Playing Santa is, without a doubt, one of the most fun gigs I’ve ever had. Shopping, wrapping, imagining the joy when they open the gift. It is all so very wonderful. Sometime in November, Tom’s mom, Peggy, called me from Costco. She was shopping, and there was one MaryEllen American Girl doll left. Should she
This summer Anna blew through baby clothes sizes so fast I could barely keep up. 6-9 months, 9-12 months, 12-18 months. “Hmmm, this can’t be right,” I thought when shimmying a pair of 2T leggings on my 11-month old baby. I kept a very weather-inappropriate fleece sleeper in Anna’s drawer all summer because I wanted
I’ve spent the last few weeks feeling a bit sad, a bit in disbelief. Soon my fourth baby will turn one, and then she won’t be a baby anymore. Perhaps it will surprise no one at all to find out that I’m feeling very, very sentimental about this milestone. This time last year I was
Now that I’m an adult, I often think back to events from my childhood and I realize I never had any sort of appreciation for the work my parents did to make them happen. Pumpkin carving fits squarely in that category. Looking back to my own childhood, I do not remember my parents finding time
I’ve been blogging a ton this week — way more than I normally do. It’s because I feel a deadline looming to post everything from vacation, if I don’t do it this week, I never will. This is the last week of summer. In just a few days my two big kids will get on
After writing two kind of complain-y posts about our trip to a beautiful lake in a phenomenal house, I would be remiss if I didn’t say: our vacation was awesome. I love finding humor in mishaps and sleep deprivation, but those moments were honestly the exceptions. There was a lot of work, sure. We were
One afternoon I was sitting on the dock while David played in the sandy area on the bank of the lake. Thomas was draping himself over my legs, doing that three-year old thing where he readjusts every two seconds or so, trying to get just a little closer to mama. David and Caleb were both
Yesterday we threw a surprise birthday party for David, and I’m telling you right now that it was the greatest scheme I’ve ever been a part of. This was such a fun party to plan, and if you think your kid would like being surprised, I HIGHLY recommend it. I’ve thrown a lot of birthday
After our visit with my sister’s family, David stayed an extra week at my mom and dad’s for some extended cousin time. Maybe you read that sentence and thought, “Oh! How wonderful for David!” If that is the case, I need to warn you, you might not relate to the rest of this post. Here’s