I can’t believe I’m doing this.
My nearly 2 year old and 3 month old girls are sleeping, and on a rare day off Dan took Nathan to help friends harvest. Thanks to awesome friends, supper is already made for tonight, and I’m caught up on laundry and dishes! So…..since I got 8 hours of sleep last night, I’m feeling ambitious and writing a blog! Well, not too much writing. I’ve been wanting to just post pictures of our summer, especially now that the cold is setting in, and white stuff will start flying in the near future.
(Edit: I wrote this on Tuesday afternoon, before snow started flying. After a 7 mos. “maternity leave” I had to re-learn how to upload photos and learn all the updates to WordPress.)
WARNING: Looooots of photos to follow. 🙂
The big event of the summer was our little Anna Rose being born on July 19th at 9lbs. 9 oz. and 21 inches. I was 42 weeks exactly. It was an emotional birth in many ways. Tears over giving up what I had planned to be a home birth, but joy and laughter at her arrival!
Anna Rose
Before Anna arrived and made us a family of five, I kept pretty busy. First, there was the Buffalo Days parade in June. I tried out my new-to-me double stroller for the first time. Love it!
My friend Angela, had her baby a few months before me.
There were many walks in the morning and bonfires in the evening, popsicles, swimming in the kiddie pool (I squeezed in occasionally to get relief from the heat), and we celebrated with fireworks on the 4th of July, the day before I was due!
We were bunny-sitting all summer for my friend, Berty, who was hiking 2,000 miles on the Continental Divide Trail.
Beautiful spring flower arrangements!
The classic summer job: baling hay.
Floating on a slice of pizza!
Making chalk roads for our trucks!
A HUGE caterpillar we found on our apple tree!
New kittens, Friendly and Tigger, as in T-I-double Ga-R!
Natalie developed her own sense of fashion while we were potty training Nathan. Here she is wearing his Thomas the Train underwear over her diaper and pants doing chores collecting eggs!
Time can basically be summed up as B.A., “Before Anna” and A.A., or “After Anna.”
Coming home from the hospital with Anna.
At a week old, Anna went on her first outing to the Rock County Fair.
The kids loved to imitate me and “play baby.”
Does everybody have their baby?
Sisters!
The other major incident of the summer was a freak accident playing where Natalie fell off the bed and landed on her face, splitting her nose open and having to get three stitches at the E.R. Anna was 9 days old when it happened. I did not have it together. Thankfully it was a Sunday and Dan was home to help me get everyone in the van while I was freaking out from all the blood. I told Dan I always thought I’d be taking Nathan to the hospital first!
Then, a thunder storm popped up out of nowhere on our way home from the ER, and with pouring rain, and lightning, a huge buck with antlers jumped out in front of our van and we hit him head on! Air bags went off, the van died on impact and it was pitch black. Thankfully no one was hurt, but our van was totaled and I lost it for a few minutes, then calmed down when everyone was fine.
Natalie’s “owie.”
A very concerned look.
At 2 weeks old, I got really brave and took all three kids to the new splash pad in Worthington by myself.
She’s getting bigger!!
Both of the kids adore her!
Another fair outing, this time the Lyon County Fair.
We braved the zoo one beautiful day with my friend Angela and her two littles! It was so much fun!
These days we are a true family of five. Anna is nearly 4 months old already and laughing and sleeping great! Nathan is potty trained and Natalie is close behind. We are taking our first big road trip to Missouri soon for a cousin’s wedding, so it will be interesting to see how an 8 hour road trip goes with three littles! I’m armed with car seat trays, stickers, play-doh, books, music, toys, snacks and games! I know I took a really, really long “maternity leave”, but I hope to write again soon!
And that’s the news from this summer on the farm!