June Post

It's July! Hooray! My due date is in July (July 31st). I'm not holding my breath that she'll arrive this month, but it's still exciting.

As usual, putting this blog together makes me realize how much we really did last month, which is especially surprising to me right now because I've been feeling quite big and useless lately. We did a lot with me lugging around this big belly. 

We went to a special disc golf round to celebrate Ben Blair's birthday. Everett insisted on helping make sandwiches. He did a really good job! Then he fell asleep on the course.

Some silly selfies with a tired mom.

Everett's school had an art and music night. He showed us some of his favorite "work," his art (this painting was called "Red Sky at Night, Sailor's Delight"--he told us he left out the "at Night" when he told his teacher the title--it's from Curious George).

Then we went to the church and Janna lead a sample of their music class. She's also the teacher of the class I take with Lydia (and a good friend).

Everett reading baby names, Lydia "reading" about sleep. I wish they could help me on these fronts!

Everett painted a fabric square for his teacher Dawn's baby quilt. She's due three weeks after me. It's been fun growing together.

Some more art from Everett. A skull and crossbones and an adorable bee! Technically he drew the bee on July 1st, but we'll fudge it a bit.

This sleeping beauty and this boy who should be sleeping but we let stay up and do a puzzle from Aunt Sue. These long June days are brutal on bedtime!

I made this image for Everett's "last day" of preschool. He's going two half days through the summer, but it will be fun to compare this answers throughout the years.

I knew this would be a trying interview when he answered "favorite food" with "all the vegetables!" I wish buddy.

Lydia at music class. Brian was able to join us during his vacation.

And Lydia and our speech therapist Karly. She's doing so well! She's still very hard to understand, but she's adding new words and phrases all the time. She now says "no way!" instead of no. And I love how she says, "I'm ready Mama" or "I'm ready Dada!"

It's fascinating how different the language learning process has been for our two kids. Everett started by saying individual words very clearly and just added and added clear words. Lydia makes full sentences, but they're basically unintelligible. Her words are getting clearer though. Even if it's just changed from no one being able to understand her to only Mom and Dad being able to understand her. I like to think of it as a sculptor chipping away until a statue is formed. She's chipping away at these sentences and they're getting clearer and clearer.

We went to the Santa Barbara Zoo! It was the only thing I really wanted to do during Brian's vacation. And it was fun! The kids enjoy the experience more every time we go, which means we do too!

I wanted to re-create this picture we took on December 31st 2012 when I was pregnant with Lydia. Unfortunately, the man I asked to take the picture didn't listen to my request to "stand over there." Oh well. I guess I need a selfie stick. Or a tripod.

We actually got maternity pictures taken! Our super talented friend Dana took them. She had to put up with a lot to get some good ones of these wild animals. But she definitely did. And we look forward to seeing even more. We met Dana out at Peachy Canyon Winery at 7:30 in the morning, went to Denny's for breakfast, and were a bit late to preschool (an hour).

The guys were tired from the full morning. But later that day we went out with friends to the disc golf course at Laguna.

Everett had his last day of Kidz Love Soccer. He wasn't sad about it at all.

But we're pretty sad we don't have a prearranged reason to hang out with the Hunters every week. It was really nice.

 34 weeks! I'm 36 as I type. Gettin' big. Kids are getting no easier to wrangle.

Fancy Lydia (just up from her nap--came out of her room like that) and Cousin Bob trying out the teeter totter. Balance was still off.

We had a lovely Father's Day. Brian slept in a little. Not super relaxing with company. He wanted tatter tots and smoothies, so that's what we had. Then he took the kids on a hike (I took a bath. Happy Father's Day to me!!). We went to Phil and Gion's for lunch (I didn't take any pictures--boo). After a BBQ chicken dinner, we roasted marshmallows.

The Lego Maniac was determined to make a Lego toilet. I was impressed! Much better than my attempt. And here we are doing crosswords. He also impressed me with his ability to understand crossword clues.

To celebrate our friend Paloma's 5th birthday, we went to see the new movie Inside Out. Afterward we went to Sylvester's for burgers and cupcakes!

Shower day!! Sunday, June 28th. Earlier that day we took at trip to the zoo to wear the kids out a bit.

The shower was held at Santa Margarita Community Park. It was really mellow and nice. Getting together with close family and friends to celebrate a new baby, what could be better?!

We were so happy that Anthony, Peggy, and Rebecca made the drive up and brought Stanley! Four generations of Cisneros men. That's not a very gentlemanly face, Everett!

The kids had a blast playing at the park. It was funny describing the shower to Everett. "It's a party to celebrate the baby, but oh yeah ALL your best friends will be there, and it's at a park with a play structure, so I anticipate you'll have a great time." Below are the moms of the best friends. We're so lucky to have these awesome, inspiring women in our lives.

our growing family

 A few of the people who made the party happen. My lovely parents and the awesome Rachel!

Phil and Gion asked to pick Everett up from school on Tuesday and take him to lunch in Morro Bay. Yes, please! (and despite the face, he really did have a good time). We're so happy Gion is doing well with her recovery. She's getting stronger and more energetic every day!

This picture is entitled: screen time = pregnant mom guilt

The kids are getting a lot more "screen time" lately. I feel bad, but I know it won't be like this for long. Soon we'll have a newborn and want to get out and do lots of stuff! *sarcasm*

Some things from facebook: 

Baby is kicking and moving all the time, and neither of the kids get it. They can't differentiate between me breathing and HUGE baby kicks and movements. Hm. Their loss!

Everett thinks Bill Nye is make believe, and when I showed him the LightSail he and his friends at the Planetary Society just put in space, he called it "a bunch of space junk." Wha!?! Blasphemy!

******

So yeah, we'll see. Will we have a baby before the next blog is due? Or will I be typing out a July blog a very large and uncomfortable mom. I should really keep up next month and not leave all the blogging till the beginning of August.

Until then! 

May Post

Wow! It's June! Less than two months till Baby Girl's due date! I guess that's how I measure time these days. Haha.

But May was very eventful. "Everything is Awesome!" as Everett (pretty much) wrote.

May 1st Everett started Kidz Love Soccer. It's a pre-soccer program that teaches kids the skills necessary for actual soccer. They play games and race and have fun. He likes it. And we're so lucky Sadie is doing Kidz Love Soccer too. So every Friday evening we get to hang out with the Hunters! Such an unusual treat.

The kids playing on the deck with toys being made for Everett's 5th birthday party! This pregnant mama gave Brian most of the work to do for the party. He created some really awesome stuff!

Bedtime reading with Grandma Kathie. Erector Set building with Grandpa George. Grandpa came over to watch the kids during a meeting I had with Lydia's speech "team."

Speaking of speech, Lydia's been doing great! It's impossible to know if it's her three sessions of speech therapy, the fluid in her ears getting cleared up, or if it was just her time to start chattering away, but she's been making amazing progress. Adding words daily and putting three and four words together. Her "favorite" word right now is "yeah," which is pretty helpful actually, even if it's not especially proper (hey, we say "yeah" all the time--bad role models). She's also learned to say "no." Happily she doesn't use it all the time. She's gotten pretty good at communicating her needs through sounds and signs, so even with the limited vocabulary, we can avoid frustration and tantrums pretty well. 

My favorite phrase of hers right now is "my help me!" She uses the sign for "help" at the same time--one palm up, other hand in a thumbs up on top, lifting up. How can you not help her when she does that?!?! So cute. 

That's right! 28 weeks = 3rd trimester! (I'm 31 weeks as I type--pictures at the end). It's quite a challenge to get these goofs coordinated for these shots, especially since they both want to write on the chalkboards now, and Everett thinks it's really funny to write joke numbers like 66 weeks and 101 weeks. I don't find it funny the tenth or eleventh time, unfortunately.

Proof that they're super sweet with each other sometimes (and may be going blind soon). And proof that they can't sit on the couch for long without taking cushions off. So many creative ways to watch TV!

Proof that I let them paint sometimes, in the kitchen, away from anything upholstered.

He really wished all his grandparents were there to experience his super pokey hair. He was happy to take a picture I could send to all four. 

"There! Another perfect paper airplane." Ha. To have his (completely unfounded) confidence.

The day before his FIFTH BIRTHDAY(!!!) Everett did his walk around the sun, it's a Montessori tradition.

And then, on May15th, our first baby turned FIVE!! It's been an awesome five years since Everett joined our family! We love him too much to express in words.

A larger version of the picture I included in the collage and another from that time. It's unusual for me to snap such nice pictures of this big kid who's always go, go, going! Note: he was playing with a sticky lizard (like a sticky hand, but a lizard).

We started out his birthday with a visit (and presents) from Grandma Kathie! Notice the nest he built with pillows so he could listen to his book on iPod with headphones in peace?

We then met up with Grandpa George to get lunch at Sylvester's. I was feeling nostalgic for that time when I'd just had my first perfect baby. That arm motion I made to brush the hair out of Lydia's face reminded me of my favorite picture from that day. Life is very different now.

Then we went to soccer. There are a couple Hunters!! Lydia has so much fun playing with Andy and Julie when Everett and Sadie are playing soccer. Although, she'd be happy to go out and play soccer too! Soon enough!

Then to Phil and Gion's for dinner and cake. Geez we did a good job filling up that day! We were so happy to see Gion feeling better and better during her recovery. Phil made a delicious and beautiful lemon layer cake for our lemon meringue loving boy. And our first/only full-family selfie? Everett was in awe watching Phil assemble the cake.

And then we had a party to celebrate Everett with all his best friends! It was a great time. Everett had asked for an inventions and animals theme and that was pretty inspiring to me. We did a lot with simple machines (teeter totter = lever, car race = inclined plane, bucket pulleys, etc.), decorated with more complicated machines (pin the propeller on the plane, hot air balloon piñata), stations where the kids could do their own inventing (catapults, paper airplanes, and a marble run), and there were animal and invention prizes and animal decorations left over from Lydia's animal party. I'll write a whole Beyond Fine blog post about it and go over all the details.

Sweetest picture of these friends! Everett's thanking Paloma for the invention kit she gave him. They've been friends since they were babies and are lucky to go to school together. Is it an inappropriate time to point out Everett's height? He's an average height for five, but he's shorter than Brian was at five and MUCH shorter than I was at five (of course). We'll see how that ends up for him. Maybe he's due for a growth spurt!

The next morning, playing with a birthday gift on the deck. Lovely.

On May 21st, Mom got her Sylvester's party! Poor Grandma, her birthday is at the end of a long string of birthdays (Gion, Lydia, and George in February; Brian and Katie in April; add in Mother's Day; then Rachel and Everett in May), so we might be suffering from a little birthday burn out by this time. But we try to make her feel special. I think she had a nice day! Isn't this picture of Mom and Dad great!?

I usually repost kids' quotes from facebook, but this time I have a Mom quote I thought was just too good:

"My mom after listening to some of a Justin Bieber album: 'it sounds like the Carpenters. He sounds like Karen Carpenter.'"

Everett's been writing on his own a lot more lately. The first picture he wrote a shopping list completely by himself, "apples, M&Ms, grapefruit, bananas." The second picture is a thank you card to his friends Marshall and Miller. He asked for help spelling names and "wood," but I was still impressed that he wrote the whole card by himself. It says, "thank you Marshall & Miller for the wooden toy love Everett C." There's another Everett in his class now, so he's been signing his name "Everett C." even though he was told he can be simply "Everett" since he was the first.

We haven't been working on reading at home. We read to him a lot, but we're not encouraging him to read unless he's interested. But fairly frequently he'll sight read something on a sign or in a book and Brian especially will exclaim, "you just read that!! That's amazing!!"

Bob is down visiting after spending four months fixing up his Alamo house to sell. I shared the first, calm picture on social media because it was such a nice picture, but the second one is a much more classic Bob roughhousing shot.

31 weeks! It was Everett's idea to put on that tie (make that face) and kiss my belly. I never would have thought to plan that shot, but I love it. Such sweeties we have. Independent sweeties who are hard to wrangle.

Caption for this shot: Brian planted 12 basil plants with the dream of eating pesto all summer. Clean up has left him with regrets. 

Maybe we can start eating outside more and just hose everything off?!? 

Speaking of eating outside . . . 

After all the crazy redecorating and birthday partying, we're finally finding the time to add stairs to our deck. They are so beautiful and so functional!! Brian tried to let Everett help whenever possible because he was really interested. So sweet, both of them.

"Everett's 'helping' Brian build the deck stairs. I hear:

Everett: when's the glue going to be dry?
Brian: tomorrow
Everett: TOMORROW?!?! Why didn't you just use hot glue?!

Ah . . . this crafter has taught her child well."

I'm sure Brian would appreciate me explaining that he wasn't building the deck with glue. I think he was fixing a crack in a more decorative part. 

More quotes from facebook:

"Everett during Return of the Jedi, 'teddy bear fight!!'" (May the 4th)

"For Mother's Day, Brian taught the kids the 'face waterfall.' If you've seen Face/Off, you'll know if that's a good thing or the most disturbing thing on the planet. Happy Mother's Day!!"

"I was singing and Lydia shushed me! Everett: 'whatever Lydia does, mom, just keep singing.' Aww! Thanks buddy! So happy he's standing up for me. Not long ago, he was the one doing the shushing."

Until next month!! June should be a good one. More Brian time--hurray!! And I say that as myself and also as my largely pregnant and uncomfortable self.