Three Years

I took Cecie into my studio for about 10 minutes on her 3rd birthday and uploaded the images but apparently they didn't upload right because I went back to try to find them today and they were in computer purgatory. I could SEE them but couldn't do anything to them. So I took screen shots of my favorites and I'm going to say that it's good enough! I can dress her up tomorrow and reshoot if I really want to....perks of having a photography studio right? You'd think a perk of being a photographer would be to not have issues like the aforementioned missing files but we'll breeze past that.

Here's Cecilia in all her unedited, boogery faced, 3 year old glory :)

Shit and Fuck

Yesterday I had my facebook page open and a picture of two minions showed up and said something with the line "scare the shit out of people" on it. Simon was right next to me looking at it and read the whole thing through. He sort of paused at the word "shit" to the point where I knew he was aware it was a naughty word but he just breezed through anyway with this little smirk on his face. I told him that was not a nice word to say yada yada. About a minute later he looks at me and says "Man I realllllly want to say that word again...shhhh....ttttttt" and then covers his mouth with his hand. I had to turn away.

Cecie likes the song Uptown Funk. The lyrics are "uptown funk you up" which OF COURSE sounds like "uptown fuck you up." Enjoy.

No Pictures...

I have been pretty spectacularly horrible at taking pictures of my kids. I even bought a second camera thinking maybe I would use it more. Well.....that has not happened. It's been a busy February work-wise so I'm using that as my excuse! So much seems constantly changing on the work front I am just trying to keep up and roll with it.

In the meantime, I will share a few stories.

I posted on facebook about how we paid Simon to put Cecilia to bed. The number thrown out there was $30. We didn't really expect him to do anything, but apparently he understands the value of $30 because he was off and running with her.

He got her upstairs, got her to go potty, got a diaper on her, helped her brush her teeth, got her into pajamas and then came the hard part....keeping her in her bed. I was in the hall listening to all this go down and was downright shocked he made it as far as he did. But she kept running into the hall by me and then he would encourage her back to her room offered her waffles SEVERAL times if she stayed in her bed. So in his most big brother convincing encouraging soft voice he was saying, "Cecie if you stay in bed you can have waffles in the morning....waffles Cecie! Cecie waffles, do you want waffles in the morning? Waffles?" She 100% ignored the waffle thing but he was trying sooooo hard. It was the sweetest most hilarious thing! So then I intervened and helped get her in bed. When we were walking out he said in the most serious voice, "Can I have my $30 now?"

He asked for it again tonight. I don't think we are getting out of that promise.

Cecilia continues to be her crazy self and now has this added layer of pure sass that surprises me allllllll the time. She enjoys tattling, threatening to tattle, talking back and making her opinions known. I suppose this is typical for a 3 year old?! She is also sweet as pie sometimes. We've been saying FOREVER that is a child of extremes and she continues to prove that theory true. Extremely sweet, extremely snuggly, extremely sassy.

Wonder what the next one will be like....sometimes I wonder IF there will be a next one. Too early to tell I guess being only 3 months into the wait, but I still can't quite wrap my head around the idea that it could actually happen. This thought keeps me from getting clothing, a crib, carseat, or anything that you might need to care for a new baby. I think it is stressing my mother out that we have nothing. Haha :) I figure we'll manage!

Funny (to us)

I was showing Cecilia a video and after it was over she said "don't turn it off!" which I did because it was over. She said "What did I JUST said?" Made me laugh :)

Simon got some information sent home about the fundraiser Jump Rope for Heart. This is my best memory of how that went....not even sure he took a breath:

"Mom we need to give money for this because it saves lives. Mom see it says that for every duck I earn I can save a life! We need to give money for this because it saves lives! Mom do we have any money? Do you have a thousand dollars? Dad has some hundreds. I saw Dad's hundred dollar bills." 

And more of this for the next hour.

That is all for today!

Blogging

I don't know how to get myself to do this again. I think I need to set up a new goal of writing a short story once a day about each kid and posting it. And eventually add more photos. Because ohmygosh am I going to be pissed at myself for not doing this.

So here goes.

Today I had a mommy temper tantrum. You know where your kids are just doing their usual thing but for whatever reason you just CAN. NOT. TAKE. IT?! Today it was breakfast and the extreme amount of time they required to eat a piece of toast. Mostly Cecie, who wound up going to day care hungry since she couldn't manage more than 2 bites in 15 minutes.

So I had a hissy fit and yelled and slammed the bathroom door and stayed in there for a few minutes to try to pull myself together. Of course I regained composure and everyone got where they needed to be on time and all was well in the world.

Later on I was talking to Simon about the high and low points in his day and he didn't mention our morning. I asked him about it directly and he said "I just didn't know why it was so LOUD when I didn't even DO anything!" HA! He was just indignant. As usual.

Cecie on the other hand cried on the stairs while I was near tears in the bathroom. She is a gentler soul who cannot tolerate yelling of any kind. I moved her hand out of the way the other day and she cried about it holding her hand as if I slapped it because apparently her feelings were hurt that I moved her hand? So anyway, I had to go apologize for yelling and explain to her how important it is to eat breakfast and yadda yadda. We hugged it out.

I thought quite a lot about Baby Number 3 during this little episode. Not sure how this is going to go...but it will go.

Things.

So I have been the world's biggest slacker with blogging. And I will probably regret it, unfortunately. I have failed to document Cecie's 2nd year in words. I do still take photos and I am up to date with my photo books (hooray), but I don't have any way of remembering all the little things. I am cutting myself some slack, though. Starting and running a business is all consuming. I thought I was going to take some pictures a few times a month (if I was lucky) and not much was going to change. I rolled with it, however, and somehow this turned into a real thing with real clients and real work and a real studio and real equipment and real props, etc, etc, etc. So something HAD to give. And it was blogging. 

I would love to say that is about to change, but let's face it. I am probably not going to be blogging like I once did. It is what it is. I DO, however, have some very important blog posts coming up and I WILL take the time to write because there are some experiences that I have to be able to go back and read about. 

So here is the first of a few very important posts coming up.

We are having a baby.

A baby. A third child. Another person will be in our family.

No, I don't have a due date. No, I don't have morning sickness (woot!). No, I am not getting round in the middle (unless I keep at the Halloween candy with the same urgency as I have been for the past week). 

So obviously I am not pregnant. But close enough! Our home study is in 2 days. Deep breath. 2 days. In 2 days, as long as everything goes well, we will start "the wait." From that point on our life is in limbo. It could be a few days, a few weeks, a few months, or even a few years before we have that third baby in our arms. Bryan seems to think it is going to happen really quickly. I love that he thinks we are so marketable. I am preparing myself for a long wait, though. I am okay with there being more space between Cecie and Baby 3, but the unknowns with this kind of adoption makes me want it to just happen right away so I don't have to think about it. 

I don't know how this is all going to shake out. How will this affect my business? Our family? Our finances? Who knows. All I know is that we are going for it. We are giving our kids another sibling and I cannot freaking wait to see what she looks like, to name her, to know her birthday, to know where she was born, etc. I know things will be hard, but we will get through it.

I'll keep you posted ;)

Today

It's too complicated to really explain why, but Cecie went to day care today and Simon stayed home with me. I took the opportunity to do something with Simon that we wouldn't normally do with a 2 year old. 

So our day started with breakfast at our local bakery and then off to mini golfing. He was pretty good. I didn't take a single picture as my phone was sitting happily in my car...somewhere it should be much more often than it is...out of reach. But even without a picture to document our time there, I assure you we were there. And I enjoyed listening to him go on about the game. He was focused. He didn't think or talk about one single thing outside of mini golf the entire 18 holes. I had to stop just to hug him somewhere in the middle because he was just so cute.

Cecie got into Bryan's pomade (fancy name for hair gel) and caked it on her braids soooo thick. So we had to wash it and fro it out because there was just no time for anything else, and then the next day she had an "incident with the sand" at day care. I left carrying her upside down trying to bat the sand out of her curls. Not easy to do!

Cecie is saying so much, so clearly and so completely these days. Wah-wee became water this week. I told her today that she breaks my heart every time she says water and she gave me an annoyed look and went to fill her cup with water. She gets her cup out of the drawer, fills it up at the fridge and is on her way...the girl loves to be independent. Soooo much more so than Simon was (or maybe is).

Simon has expressed his disinterest in going back to school. I don't blame him really. We've been living foot loose and fancy free (is that the right saying??!) for awhile now and I'm not really ready to have to make lunches every day again. But, alas, I will have to.

Anyway, I should go to bed.