Our Everyday

Hello, All. Nate here. Yes, Sara let me hijack the blog. Just wanted to recount the great time I had here about a week ago sharing the house with eight women! Four were on their way to Cape Cod, another was just here to see us and NYC, and the other three live in the house with me all the time. All the visitors took some time to brave the heat and visit the city (and the Fila store!). Sadie, of course, loved playing with Amanda and Katie. And she's still talking about them, I guess wondering if they are still at "the hotel." When told that we were going to call her Uncle Tedd to say happy birthday last weekend, she wanted to know..."Is he at the hotel??" Lots of folks coming through Jersey to see us have visited the famous local hotel, so Sadie is well aware. We love all the visitors and miss you all!

No, I am sorry, not everything can be knit or crocheted! Somebody has a little too much time and way too much yarn on their hands over there at Lion Brand. Is this an actual paid potition? To sit around and come up with this?! Do they think that this creation is going to sell yarn? Wow, I just don't know about some things...

Did I ever tell the story of Nicole and I making and SELLING earrings made out of rubber washers? Well we did, and we sold a ton! This was back in the day of splatter paint on everything, remember the shops where you could splatter paint shirts and other stuff, a late eighties version of Color Me Mine, those paint it yourself pottery places. Well, we splattered some paint on these rubber washers left over from clock movements my mom used for her business. Put some hook earring hangers on them and "ta-da", raging eights fashion perfect for selling at high class swap meets like Koby's. I really can't believe anyone bought them.

Yes, come to find out there is a mighty bear population in New Jersey. I noticed an article in the paper that was spread out on the ground underneath Sadie's rocking chair that I have been meaning to paint since her second birthday, oh no her first! Ahh, where has the time gone. Anyway, so I was painting this rocking chair and the paper had a feature about the large population of bears and how they are becoming a nuisance, breaking into homes and sheds, and there are about 3400 in the state, and they are HAVING A BEAR HUNT in December! What, a bear hunt?! I guess they had one 2 years ago and there was a huge uproar(he-he) from the animals rights groups, yada, yada, yada. I stopped reading about there, but I had to share the news.
It has been great weather lately, nice and warm. Sadie and I and Emma too, went to the park yesterday to try and fly a little kite I found for Sadie, but the wind was just gusty and not constant enough to really catch it. It flew for about 15 seconds and Sadie was like, " Okay, it flew, I want to go to the slides and swings." So that was the end of that for the day. But the park we went to is where all the moms/nannies go with all the kids so there were plenty of kids for Sadie to play with. For a funny park story, check this out. I was really laughing, seems almost Snicket-esque. Was this Olaf in disguise? A Very Obvious Dilemma for sure.

This is the work of a really big plastic slide at the park. If you touch her you really get zapped!



Just clowning around.

Gotta love that smile...


This reminded me of Forrest Gump, these are her really FAST running shoes which cause her to run everywhere when she has them on. Run, Sadie, run. If she is going anywhere, she was runnin'.

Sonja is in town this weekend and the Hess Mess and Aunt Debby-U as well. So the house has been hoppin' with Sadie leading the parade. At the moment, it is 10:50pm and she is still loud and going strong while she gets her stories for bed. All the visitors are going into the city tomorrow to see the sites.
On Friday, Sonja went into the city with Nathan to cruise around so I decided to head out to a book sale in town with both of the girls in tow. I am not sure why I thought we could get thru it without a hitch. First of all I needed to get some cash but I wanted to go to a drive thru atm so I did not have to get everyone in and out of the car anymore than necessary. Our bank is like four towns over so anyway I never have cash. So I decided to go to the BofA but they were working on the driveway so I went to the bank next door where I could not find any atm so I pulled thru into the BofA and could not find the atm there. Next I went to some other bank which also did not have a machine so I pulled into the teller window and asked where the closest one was and the guy told me so I headed over there and was able to find it. Next challenge was to find the school where the sale was being held. I had asked the librarian last time I was there and thought I knew where it was. But nooooo. After driving around for fifteen minutes and getting nowhere I pulled into library #2 and asked a mom walking thru the parking lot who explained how to get there. So I thought I was in the clear now but not too fast buckaroo. There was road construction and a detour which I tried to go around but had to turn around and go thru the detour where I finally saw signs leading me to the sale. During all of this Sadie was very patient and only asked, "are we were there yet," about thirty times. Finally, I told her that we would not be there until we were out of the car.
Once we were there, I loaded Sadie into the stroller, which I had negotiated she ride in thru out the visit, and Emma into the Baby Bjorn and off we went to find the entrance. In comes obstacle number 52, stairs. There was no way to get into the place without climbing a set of ten stairs. A woman comes out of the door and I ask her if there is any way to get the stroller into the sale and she says it is really tight and the stroller would not fit. So there goes my whole plan, could anything else be any more difficult? Oh, yes it certainly can!
We are in the book sale and we find the children's section and there are tons of little kids so Sadie starts making friends instantly. I find a huge stack worth of books and a lady gets me a bag to stash them in, and just about now Emma starts getting fussy. So I continue looking, hoping that moving around will help her feel better, but it does not. So we leave our books under the cashiers table and head out to the car for a snack and a clean diaper, then back into the sale to look a bit more. I finally find the craft section and Emma is just not going to be happy. I pick out a couple books before Emma goes into Super fuss mode and I toss them in our bag as we head out to the hall to calm Emma down and wait for the line to dissipate. Once we walked out the door, into the quiet hall, the crying stops.
After a rest in the hall, we head back in and so does Emma with her crying. Now I have decided to use the crying baby to our advantage. Soon I have three ladies trying to help put our books in another bag without a tear and cash us out ASAP. And one of the women even offers to carry the bag of books out to the car for us. But of course Sadie had to find a super-fab book she could not live without right after I had paid for everything and put all my money away and she was not going to give it up easily so I asked how much and plopped down the 50 cents so we could get out of there and Emma would stop screaming. So out we go to the car and once we step out of the door into the outdoors Emma is happy as a lark, whatever that means. Here it means not screaming and acting like she has not screamed a peep in her life.
But don't forget that stroller, which had been left at one entrance which was a different one than we had just exited thru. So after loading everyone up we had to double back around, since the road is one way, to get back to the other side where the stroller has been so patiently waiting our return.
So that was our Friday adventure.

the peaches are so good right now. I just finished one and it was just grand.

Today was doctor day and wow am I glad it is over. Does anyone else have to drag their three year old into the exam room when her name is called? Every time a nurse would come out to the lobby Sadie would ask if it was her turn until after waiting for forty five minutes it was actually her turn. She had been playing with a little girl the whole time and she was figuring out that playing would probably be much better than seeing the doctor. I finally got her in there once one of the nurses took Emma in for me and I could get Sadie myself. Then there is Emma who quickly figures out if she is not with me or Nathan and the lower lip pops out and her face turns red and the siren goes off until of course I come back into the scene. The little girl's grandmother, who Sadie was playing with, took her for me while I took Sadie to the bathroom and Emma quickly caught on that I was no longer in the room and began to wail. She did the same thing when the nurses took her into the exam room while I corraled Sadie in there as well.
We thought that both girls needed shots but found out only Emma did. It went a bit better than last time, she calmed down pretty well. Sadie was a bit upset by it all but like she always does, she was on to the next thing once something else caught her attention, in this case it was stickers.


Sadie is just up from a rest and she is having a snack.
One-liner of the day:
"That's so silly, it makes me laugh, haha haha."

I did it. I finally made it to a local knitting group at the library in town. It was so much fun. Lots of great yarn, ideas and new faces. There were ladies who knit for charity, a million miles per hour, and every skill level. Now I want to get all my yarn out and figure out what project to do next. But then there is my softies too. Currently, I am working on a pumpkin head girlie and plans for an owl from one of my most favorite books from childhood, Owl at Home. Sadie loves the book too so I thought she might appreciate the owl as well.
We have been a bit busier than normal with outings to the library #1 and #2, the park, the grocery, etc. So I have not been using the camera much. Our new tradition currently is going to the ice cream store on Saturday night. Definitely the place to be if you are under 5 on a Saturday night. Today we went to the library for crafts that they host once a month. Yesterday we were also at the library for a while and visited the park in the late afternoon before picking up Nathan at the train station. We even waited for him on the platform, very exciting for a three year old. Emma slept thru the arrival and departure of the train miraculously.
Tomorrow, we visit the doctor with lots of shots! Yikes!

Sadie: Comes running in from outside for dinner, up the stairs and exclaims, "Mama, I looove meat." Then she is off, running up the next set of stairs to her room.

I know, I know. These pictures are basically the same but she was just too cute so I HAD to post all of these. But actually there are more that I left unposted. So, yes I do take way too many pictures of our kids. But I am not emailing them out to everyone I know, you all have made a choice to look at the site and be overrun with baby pictures. I guess some people consider getting emails from family and friends of their kids or grandkids as boring and on the level of junk mail from what I read in an article in the paper. But I don't think these same people receive an inordinate amount of forwards with pictures of cute, little, winking kittens and angels with moving wings ,or all the information that you should know if you are ever caught walking thru a dark parking lot ,or how to escape if someone locks you in your trunk ,or if you send this chain letter to 400 people in the next 15 seconds the wish that you write at the bottom of the page will come true in one week ,or any other assortment of facts, fibs, and frivolous knowledge to clutter your mind and your trash can. Or at least that is my perspective. So anyway did I tell you how cute little Emma-M is?

Sadie has been coming up with some really great three-year old logic, and otherwise silly statements about what she sees around her. Nathan told her that if she ate too much of something she would turn into that something the other day. So tonight when she was going to bed she asked if she could come down and be with us but of course we have to be mean and say no. So she says "But Daddy, if you stay up to late you will turn into a...(pause for reflection) couch." This is the freshest in my mind and I know there has been a dozen or so others that I said I HAD to remember but they have floated out of my mind and into oblivion. She also has been saying about everything, "This is my favorite ______ in the whole world", and "Mama, you are my best friend forever." So that leads me to write the following poem that I printed off another blogger mom's site. Ever so appropriate for Sadie girl.

"There was a little girl with a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good she was very, very good and when she was bad she was horrid!"

Insert random story here:
When I was in forth grade we would watch this show in class on PBS called, "Palabra Jot." And every once in awhile the song just pops into my head like when I was writing the above sentence regarding my mind and oblivion. The song went "Palabra jot, palabra jot, write a little, write a lot." The host was this turtle puppet thing, like something from Jim Henson but not furry. Very weird, very, very weird. Or maybe it was a grasshopper. Oh, geez, now I am all mixed up! I know it was something green...I also had a math teacher who said," Who absconded with my pencil?" on a regular basis, good ol' Mr Alexander, and another math teacher who would say," Meanwhile, back at the ranch..." after he took role, good ol' Mr Crowson.

Sadie and Emma and I went shopping for some new shoes for Sadie. We were at the store and trying on a pair that she really liked and once we found the right size she went over to look at them in the mirror because she REALLY likes to look in the mirror and practice dramatics,etc. So she slowly creeps up to the mirror and stops short of being in the reflection, takes a deep breath and leans over so just her face is reflecting, grinning all the while. Then I tell her to go ahead and look so she prances out in front of the mirror and she is just so excited at what she sees. She had the sales woman laughing. But after that everything she saw she wanted to have. "Mama, I want that. No, I need that, Mama." So then we go to the Gap and if it was up to her, we would have walked out with one of everything, but luckily there were kids there which are much more interesting than clothes. We picked out thisdress. I love it, too bad they don't have one in my size or I would have one too. I have some plans for a sweater to match made with some yarn that I have and was intending to make something for her anyway. The colors are perfect. I hope, I hope. But the dress is big so she could wear it for a long time so I do have some time. I just can't knit fast enough to keep up with all of the great patterns I keep finding!

Sadie got another hair cut last night. She did really well in between major wiggling fits. But I was able to cut her bangs somewhat straight, the back was a different story. By then, Nathan had brought up the video camera and Sadie was just itching to get her hands on it. He flipped the screen so she could see but that just added to the wiggle power. I shot him a look and he shut it off and laughed saying he thought she would be more still if she could she herself. In reality, she just goes into major performance mode and then all hope is lost. By school it should have grown out enough not to show all the wonky parts!

I guess this has been a hairy week by all the posts,he-he.

Before


After

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Eeeeee!

Aren't they cute?! There is big-eyed Emma wondering what is going on.

I was just reading thru Sadie's packet for school and I was getting nervous like I was going to school again for the first time. So I had to put it down and post this picture so I don't freak out. I never liked the first days of school, the new teacher and all the new faces and places to go. I think one of my most common bad dreams is having to go to school or class and having some bizarre obstacle in my way keeping me from getting there. Sometimes the car I was driving would slowly lose parts until it was just a skateboard with a steering wheel or my clothes that I needed were at Martha's house so I had to walk over there to get them, or I could not find something I needed to take to school so I would go out searching for it and end up miles from school hours later. But I also used to wake up on Saturdays in college trying to think of what class I was late for. Do you think I had a complex or what?
I just hope Sadie does not get any of that from me and really likes going to school.

Emma

I was inspired by Alisha to do a little compare and contrast. Emma has always looked different than Sadie to me but they do have some shared expressions or whatever you call them at this point. Here are some I found. It actually makes me realize how different they really are. There is a photo of Nathan when he is about Sadie's age that she really resembles. Funny how different looks remind you of different people in the family. I saw a photo of Amilda that looked a lot like Emma at Grandma Benson's house. Got to go feed the children!

Sara

Emma

Sadie

Emma

Sadie

Emma

Sadie

Okay, I think Sadie finally is caught up on her sleep from all the roaring days and nights spent with cousins frolicking about. Yesterday she woke from a three hour nap and was not crying, but ready to do something fun. I, on the other hand, have not quite recovered for what ever reason. Too many things to do and not enough sleep, I guess. Emma seems to be back in the habit of eating multiple times a night so that has had me up more than normal. I need like a week of uninterupted sleep, so I am not falling asleep on the floor next to Emma while Sadie runs around the house doing whatever comes to mind.

Sadie found a magic feather in the front yard today that she was all excited about when I came home from grocery shopping. No, I did not leave her out in the yard while I went to the store, she was here with Nathan.

I wish I had some really fantastic photos to post but alas I don't. The batteries are dead yet again and I have not replaced them. Oh well, you will have to settle for this stock photo.

All the festivities have come to a close. Sadie loved her birthday weekend with everyone here, especially Luci and Nate. We are thinking of swinging by the west coast around the New Year, after Christmas spent in Colorado. I can't believe it is August already, the summer has just flown by.