Oh February.  We are in the thick of Winter and hibernation is in full swing.  The twins have their 4th birthday this month.  That will be fun.  The gobs of snow that we’ve had this winter is now deeper than the mailboxes and I’m ready for Spring.  Blayne named Gwenie Ruby and she is doing quite well.  She loves our morning walks and I’m able to bring her further and further each morning.  She does not do so great off leash when we are down at the lake (she likes to chase after deer or visit the ice-fishermen) but we are working on it.  When we got her they said she wouldn’t play with toys or chew on bones (probably because she was never given the opportunity to do these things) but we’ve got her doing both now.  I’d say that is a positive sign she is happy here.

Finnegan loves Thomas so much he has to use his train to eat his spaghetti.  The boy is obsessed with trains.

The clean up.

The three stooges.  This picture cracks me up because the kids all have the same look on their faces.

The girls are all in the Dance for Fun program at the Chanhassen Rec Center.  They had their Winter Showcase this past weekend, which is a practice round for the big recital in the Spring.  Everyone did a fantastic job.  It was very cute!

Iris in action

Kira ready for her dance.  She’s on the end.  Tavie is hard to see in the gaggle of girls.

Tavie getting in a little b-ball before her dance.

Last winter we adopted a puppy, Ben, who was a Gordon Setter.  He was very cute and mostly good, except when it came to the baby Finn.  For some reason the baby always made him nervous and this seemed to progress and get worse with time.  He got to the point where he would growl if Finn came within 6 feet of him, and finally he bit Finn.  We found a very, very good home for Ben with a retired couple across the lake from us.  They have two acres of land, no children, and they love Gordon Setters.  Ben is doing very, very well with his new family.  He is very sweet and loving and very happy with his new mommy and daddy and brother.

And last week we adopted a new doggy!  Her name is Gwenie (which we will probably change) and she is a Saint Bernard.  She is big and gently and full of love.  We think she was a breeder in a puppy mill and when her utility wore out she was dropped off where she was found as a stray.  She is five and seriously the sweetest dog I’ve ever met.  She is adapting very well to our active family.  She loves kids, cats, other dogs, our long morning walks, food, and mostly she loves Blayne.  She has become very attached to Blayne and he has even started taking her to work with him.  We’re glad she’s a part of our family!

Here is Mr. Ben.  We are glad you have found a calmer home which causes you no child anxiety!

Gwenie at the meet and greet at the Midwest Animal Rescue headquarters.  We knew right away she would be right for our family!  Her foster family was sad to see her go.

Ohhhhh, so much love already.

And Mr. Dez who we adopted shortly after the twins were born.  Such a good doggy.

And here is Mr. Finn just because he is so gosh darn cute!

I go through life not really realizing how sleep deprived and drained I am until something happens and it sort of slaps me in the face.  That happened today.  I was going to bring all the kids to the library because Kira got very upset this morning when Daddy returned her book to the library.  I packed up all the kids and discovered when we got there that we still had 45 minutes before it opened.  Finn had already fallen asleep in his car seat – little stinker – so I went through the drive-through Caribou in Excelsior to get some tea and decided to just drive for a bit to let the girls look at all the flowers, to let Finn finish his nap, and to waste time until the library opened.

So I’ve got my tea, I’m driving along, pointing out flowers like we do Christmas lights in the winter.  In the winter when we see houses decorated with lots of pretty lights we yell, “Christmas on the left!” or “Christmas on the right!”  Today it was “purple flowers on the right!” and “white flowers all over that huge tree on the left!”  I’m driving along and I come to an intersection that I assume is a 4 way stop.  Wrong, two way, and as I am going through the intersection I realize a car was going through the intersection and I missed it in my blind spot.  CRASH.  In slow motion I watch as the other car’s air bags engage and the car spins in a half circle.  It really was a pretty soft bump and nobody was hurt.  Thank the Benevolent Blissful Ever-present  Divine Consciousness!  Still, it was scary and jarring to be in fender bender, however small.

Nobody was hurt, the other driver was a super sweet woman who politely declined my offer of a lift after we had exchanged information  Who can blame her?  It’s most important that nobody was hurt.  And as Blayne said, that’s why they call them accidents.  But it makes you think.  It could have been worse.  And I’m slapping myself for being so tired and for not being more present in the uber important job of driving my kids around.  Guilt, it’s such an ingrained part of parenting, isn’t it?

When will Finnegan start sleeping better aside from the fluke sleep through the night? (Hey, it happened once!)  When will he start taking more than 1/2 hour naps?  I can’t just wave a magic wand and make him sleep better.  We can’t divine the future so I have no idea when things will get better.  We just need to work through it with our son, I guess.  Luckily Blayne is willing to be up just as much as I am.  He’s such a good daddy and such trooper.  We will continue trying to get him to sleep better, we will continue to be patient while he’s up fussing for two hours in the middle of the night.  I’ll continue to nurse him and comfort him SEVERAL times a night.  We’ll continue to take him into our bed even though we’d really like to reclaim it as adults only.  What else can we do?  Just love him, that’s what.

He is pretty darn cute, isn’t he?

Iris has always had people clamoring to take pictures of her.  Photographers have approached me on the street to have a photo shoot with her, model agencies have called asking for her to submit a head shot….she is just a very photogenic little girl.  She is indeed a beautiful young lady and I’m proud that all of Chanhassen gets to see her having summer fun from Lake Ann Adventure Camp last summer!

My only complaint with the book is that a lot of the recipes call for eggs and milk or butter but their master recipe (my first freeform loaf picture above) is a basic recipe with just flour, yeast, salt, and gluten.  Hopefully my loaves will get better and not so dense, or I’m sure Iris will complain about the hard bread for her sandwiches.

Well, I have a lot more to write about but alas, Finnegan only took a 20 minute nap (no surprises there) and the twins are not playing well together in their quiet time.  Most days I feel like I live my life in 10 minute chunks, because that is all the time I ever get to concentrate on one task.  This too shall pass, I keep reminding myself.

Our day?  Kira has a cold so we hunkered down and lazed around.

I am crawling, crawling, crawling up a storm.

Apparently the veterinarian says I’ll grow into my droopy eyes.  Until then, I’ll just look sad and pouty.

Who needs pants?  Most days not me!

I’m a sickey-bickey today.

And last but not least, I was pouting because everyone else got a picture….so here is mine.