Project 365 Weeks 16 and 17

Last Sunday, my family was traveling back to Delaware from a trip to Massachusetts for a dear friend's wedding.  I decided to do a combined post for the past two weeks of photos.

04/16/2017

Alleluia, He is risen!  Happy Easter!  I had very little luck getting a group Easter photo where everyone was looking at the camera, but I absolutely love this shot even if it isn't typical.

04/17/2017

Zélie really loves being outside.  About 5 minutes before this was taken she was restless and cranky.  I took her outside, and voila, she was perfectly content.  By the way her hands and face are not bruised they are just stained with frozen blueberries (one of her favorites!)

04/18/2017

I was a little disappointed that our boxwood didn't survive pruning because it meant the loss of beautiful green bokeh, but I am kind of loving the effect of the bokeh created by the bare branches.  I still think boxwoods are ugly and still want to uproot it and plant something prettier, but for now I will appreciate the interesting photo background.

04/19/2017

One of the best parts of Spring Break week?  The kids get to play with Daddy when they aren't completely exhausted.

04/20/2017

This lady was a little concerned that I had left the room to grab my camera.  We had just arrived a few hours earlier at my sister's house so she was a little shy.  It didn't last long.

04/21/2017

About 30 seconds before I took this photo of my sweet nephew, Atticus was curled up beside him watching some Daniel Tiger.  As soon as he spotted my camera, he jumped ship.  I do love having a photo of this cutie pie though.

04/22/2017

My photo for today will not be posted.  It is a photo from my dear friend's wedding reception and I do not like to post photos without permission.  I also think she and her husband should get to view the photo first.

04/23/2017

Want to know how to impress a 3 yearold?  Put sprinkles in the pancake batter.  My brother-in-law has received declarations from my 3 big kids that he makes the best pancakes.  Sprinkles for the win!

04/24/2017

So how do you get a smile like this for a photo?  I said, "Guess what!"  Little Ish, knowing where this generally leads said, "chicken butt?"  My response? "No, cucumber potatoes"  Apparently that was enough to catch his funny bone.  He was literally on the floor laughing and clutching his side. 

04/25/2017

Liliana doesn't nap often, but when she does, she does it in style.

04/26/2017

Zélie is obsessed with her Camelbak water bottle.    Actually she is obsessed with camelbak water bottles in general.  We made the mistake of not bringing hers with us to a gathering with friends.  A lot of her friends had their camelbaks with them and she was so sad and angry that we wouldn't let her drink from theirs.

04/27/2017

At 13 months, my big kids were either taking their first steps or still crawling; Zélie climbed to the top of the tallest slide at the playground by herself.  Ish was standing by to rescue her if she needed it. 

04/28/2017

Atticus had a blast fighting pretend fires on Lola and Dziadzia's back patio. 

04/29/2017

The dress Zélie is wearing is perhaps one of my best consignment scores ever--a Matilda Jane dress in perfect condition for $5.  I am completely obsessed with the color combination on her too with her red hair.  And just a charming anecdote in regards to the dress: Last night my friend's 4 yearold daughter came up to me and said, "Excuse me Siné, did you know that Zélie is cute?" and 2 minutes later she came over and said, "Excuse me Siné, did you know Zélie's dress is very pretty?" 

Project 365 Week 15

This past week has been a blur.   It felt busier than it actually was, but I am very grateful that this next week is spring break for my husband.  Hopefully that will give me time to get my feet back under me.

04/09/2017

We had beautiful weather on Sunday so I felt the need to put Zélie in the sweet romper before she outgrows it.  I get a real kick out of how Zélie walks when she has shoes on in the house.  She pretty much marches everywhere.

04/10/2017

Lily has recently expressed a somewhat larger than normal fear of bees.  For a few days she refused to go outside at all.  On Monday, with a lot of encouragement--and a bit of bribery--she decided that she was going to face her fears.  She is pictured here wearing her bee protection gear.  She has headphones so bees cannot fly into her ears; binoculars so she can spot bees coming, and a bandage just in case a bee stings her.  She is definitely getting less afraid, and is spending more time outside.

04/11/2017

I, for one, am really enjoying the warmer weather we have had this past week.  Tuesday evening it was still warm enough outside after dinner to go outside and play.  Zélie really liked being barefoot in the grass; she also liked trying to eat rocks.

04/12/2017

Somebody discovered Daddy's dice bag.  No dice made it to her mouth, and I managed to confiscate it fairly quickly.

04/13/2017

Atticus loves his 15 minutes of game time.  Ish and Lily play their 15 minutes on the computer, but Atticus prefers playing a game on Ish's phone.  Being able to play on the phone often requires him doing the job of getting the phone off of the charger and bringing it downstairs so Ish can set him up (and put the phone in guided access).

04/14/2017

Lily was disappointed that she couldn't go hand deliver a thank you note to our neighbors because they were out of town for the day.  With predictions of rain and a less than cautious mail delivery person, we didn't want her chancing putting it into the mailbox only to have the postal worker leave the top open later while it was raining. 

04/15/2017

We spent some time on Holy Saturday dying eggs for Easter.  Little Ish and Liliana really liked trying some wax resist on their eggs. 

Project 365 Week 14

So it finally happened;I missed a day. On Monday things were extra crazy and the only photo I took was of a gigantic splinter in Little Ish's foot.   My goal for this project was to pick up my DSLR every single day this year, but sometimes life just happens.  I hadn't even realized that I missed a day until Tuesday morning.  I am not discouraged, and for the sake of not grossing anyone else out, I will refrain from posting the ghastly splinter photo. 

04/02/2017

This photo makes me laugh every time I look at it.  Zélie is Atticus's favorite person and I am starting to think Atticus may be Zélie's favorite person too.  When Atticus is sad her hugs and kisses Zélie.  He does not feel comfortable when he doesn't know where she is.  Zélie definitely keeps tabs on Atticus throughout the day too.  I catch her crawling or walking over to where he is, smiling, and then walking back to whatever she was doing before she went to check on him.  It melts my heart.

04/03/2017
No photo today, but I would like to report that the splinter was successfully removed from Little Ish's foot.

04/04/2017

This sweet girl started the day with a low grade fever.  I assumed it was because she seems to be working on a molar.  By the time she woke up from her afternoon nap, however, her temperature was over 103 degrees and she had a fine rash all over her torso.  I called the pediatrician, and it turns out Zélie was having a fairly typical and harmless reaction to the MMR vaccine she had 8 days prior.  I was relieved to know that the fever would dissipate with in 48 hours and that it wasn't anything she could pass on to her siblings.

04/05/2017

These two spend a lot of time arguing and tattling on each other, but they are also such good buddies.  I love when I find them just enjoying each other's company.

04/06/2017

I thought she was chewing on her fingers, I noticed right after snapping the photo that she was trying to eat a pompom from the big kids' art supplies.  They are easily Zélie's favorite thing to find and stick in her mouth, I am constantly fishing them out of her mouth.  Thankfully she has not choked on one, but when the rest of our current supply of pompoms is gone, I will not be replenishing them for quite a long while.

04/07/2017

Sometimes he stands still and I can capture the details of his toddler features.  I am so glad to have captured his still very much baby-like hands.

04/08/2017

Zélie spent about 30 minutes stacking and unstacking these cups in various locations throughout the house. 

Project 365 Week 13

This has been the calmest week we have had in awhile.  That isn't to say we had a boring or lazy week, but a week without anyone being sick made everything feel much calmer.  It probably also helped that Ish took Monday off from work so the week went by faster.  The kids miss him so much during the day so one less day of missing Daddy is definitely a good thing.

03/26/2017

Admittedly this was not my favorite photo from the day, but as a rule, I don't post photos of my babies running around in diapers.  I do like having this photo though because it captures part of our daily routine.  The big kids have 15 minutes of computer game time each day.  Lily especially loves the Daniel Tiger games on PBS Kids.

03/27/2017

On Monday, Ish took off from work so we took a family field trip to the Delaware Museum of Natural History.  In their special dinosaur exhibit, there was a rock climbing wall.  Little Ish worked really hard to figure out how to get successfully from one end of the wall to the other.

03/28/2017

It was a dark and stormy day so naturally the kids put on their bathing suits and sunglasses, laid a blue blanket out on the floor of the playroom, and went swimming. 

03/29/2017

I forgot to pick up my camera until late afternoon so a quick portrait of Zélie was pretty much a last ditch effort to make sure I didn't miss a day of my project 365.  Somedays are like that.

03/30/2017

Magformers are easily one of the most played with toys in our house.  The kids have so much fun building a wide variety of 2d and 3d structures with them. 

03/31/2017

When did she get to be so grown up?!

04/01/2017

Zélie gets such a kick out of trying to shut people between the front doors.  Lily has figured out how to place her body so she doesn't actually get stuck between the doors. 

Project 365 Week 12

This week started with a variety of maladies.  Lily was still recovering from her ear infection and my cold turned into a raging sinus infection. The week ended with everyone in good health and with Little Miss Zélie turning 1.

03/19/2017

This sweet girl was really sad about needing to take antibiotics.  Since she is allergic to amoxicillan, she has to take an alternative that happens, cherry flavoring be darned, to taste absolutely awful.  She actually woke up with nightmares about having to take it.  Here is to hoping that she can avoid needing antibiotics for a good long time.

03/20/2017

I may or may not love that it looks like Zélie's head just fell out of the sleeve of my jacket while we were playing peek-a-boo.

03/21/2017

Ish's parents watched my big kids all day on Tuesday so that I could have a chance to rest and recuperate from my sinus infection.  Zélie was a wonderful recuperation buddy.  She basically slept and nursed the majority of the day (not a common occurrence for her).  The only time I thought to pick up my camera was while she was eating lunch.  I never want to forget her sweet little baby hands.

03/22/2017

This little lady was glad to have her siblings back at home with her;  she takes such delight in their antics.  She often just stares at them as though she is trying to take it all in.

03/23/2017

Atticus spent over an hour on Thursday afternoon trying to cure my sinus infection by giving me pretend haircuts.  I got to spend an hour sitting on the couch getting what amounted to an amazing head massage and he had a fun being a "haircutting doctor guy".

03/24/2017

Atticus enjoys water play and also really likes to try to do things that Ish and I do.  This amounted to him washing and rewashing the majority of non-breakable dishes in the house.  He took occasional breaks inbetween washings asking for dry clothes.  He went through three outfits by the time he was done.

03/25/2017

Happy birthday, Zélie Marguerite! We had beautiful weather for Zélie's birthday so we spent it at Longwood Gardens.  In the evening she celebrated with friends, and she thoroughly enjoyed her birthday cupcake.

Project 365 Week 11

I, along with all four children, have spent the week fighting a terrible cold.  Zélie's started with an ear infection and Liliana's seems to be wrapping up with a double ear infection.  It has not been a fun week around here to say the least.

One high point of the week was spending Monday evening watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's stone with Little Ish.  I don't have a photo, but I wanted to remind myself of it here for when I look back.  Little Ish and I finished reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone a few weeks ago and were waiting for our library hold on the movie to come in.  He got to stay up after bedtime and watch the movie with me --a special treat.

03/12/2017

I love my niece's thinking face here.  We spent Sunday afternoon hanging out with Ish's family and Persephone continued her habit of plunking herself down in beautiful light when I have my camera out.

03/13/2017

This girl loves to twirl.  One of her requirements for a good dress is that it is good for twirling; this one certainly fits the bill.

03/14/2017

Zélie loves watching the kids playing outside in the snow. Ish had a snow day so I was able to hang out inside with her where it was warm while he watched the big kids.

03/15/2017

This sad boy had a really rough day on Wednesday.  He had fever dreams on Tuesday night and overall slept terribly;  he proceeded to spend several hours of Monday morning napping on and off.  When he wasn't napping he was pretty unhappy.

03/16/2017

Zélie loves standing on the couch.  It drives me crazy, but as she spends so much time doing it, I figured I might as well document it.

03/17/2017

I had just told her that Ish had pulled into the driveway, and this was her reaction.  When she actually saw him walk in the door she had the biggest smile on her face.

03/18/2017

Double ear infections are the pits.  Lily has mostly been in good spirits about it, but I can tell she isn't feeling like her happy, healthy self. 

Project 365 Week 10

It was a fairly calm beginning to our week here, but Friday landed us in the ER with Zélie.  We fed her canteloupe for the first time and it turns out she is very much allergic.  Friday reminded me of how grateful I am for family who will watch my children in a pinch and how grateful I am that we live near an excellent children's hospital.  Zélie is doing okay now minus the lovely ear infection the nurse practitioner discovered while examining Zélie in the ER.

03/05/2017

We spent our afternoon on Sunday hanging out with family.  I was so excited to capture this photo of my sweet 2 year old niece in a quiet moment.  

03/06/2017

This photo is from my first attempt at free-lensing. Why I thought it was a good idea to try this out on a fast moving baby, I do not know.

03/07/2017

Occasionally Atticus will ask me if he can borrow my phone so he can draw a picture and send it to Ish via text message.  On Tuesday, the bigger kids caught on and had so much fun watching him and cheering him on as he was drawing.

03/08/2017

Lily's fashion sense makes me smile.  She was so in love with this rainbow sundress that I picked up at a thrift store that she insisted on wearing it right away.  We compromised and she wore a shirt underneath because it definitely was not warm enough outside for a sundress.

03/09/2017

Thursday was the 2nd anniversary of when we found out that Gregory had died.  A dear friend and her children came over to provide a welcomed distraction for the day.  Later in the day when Ish returned home, I took advantage of some beautiful early evening light.   (And yes Lily did wear the same outfit 2 days in a row; she really loves that rainbow dress).

03/10/2017

One of the sweetest things that happened surrounding the events of Zélie's allergic reaction is that Atticus was so worried for her.  He actually wanted to go to the ER with us instead of hanging out with his cousins.  He was amazingly behaved in the ER and I think it helped him to understand that Zélie was okay. 

03/11/2017

Zélie was in much better spirits on Saturday.  She was also incredibly excited about her new jacket.