Our first week adjusting to being a 3 child family went fairly well. The Man does an awesome job being both Daddy and Mommy and runs a tight ship downstairs. (On the few occasions I have gone down stairs, everything has been so tidy – the fridge is organized, the dishes are always done, and he even keeps the dining room vacuumed. No, he is not for sale, or even for rent!)
But even Superman needs a break once in a while, and that’s when I will take one of the older kids up on my bed with me for special Mommy time. Seth is a good napper, so while he’s sleeping, I have been prililedged to have some real quality time with Jesse and Claire in the past week.
This little girl is so precious. It’s such a treat to get to spend some uninterrupted time with her. I confess this was the first time I’d ever just sat and played with her for an hour!
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| Claire pauses to eat a bit of leftover breakfast she found on her shirt. |
I love wooden toys. One of the joys of motherhood is recreating favorite childhood memories for you own kids. It’s the next best thing to being young again!
Growing up, we had wooden beads, wooden blocks, wooden toy instruments, and sturdy little wooden table and chairs. This has definitely influenced the kind of toys I have collected for my own children. We never had a wooden train set. I wanted Brio more than I wanted a Barbie – and that’s saying something. I found Jesse a wooden train set on Craig’s list before he could even say “Choo-choo!” and I have spent hours playing with it (and him!) I am a well adjusted adult because of this.
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| I’m slightly jealous that my fingers don’t fit in the holes anymore… |
I’m so glad companies like Melissa and Doug 
We strung them on stiff, square-sided leather shoes strings that tasted salty when you chewed them. (I don’t remember why we chewed them – just that they were salty!)
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| I tried to interest her in color-sorting, but she got sidetracked with one of her favorite little games – shoving things down the front of her shirt. She’s very hard on her shirt collars because of this habit. |
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| I helped her, and we got most of the beads inside her outfit. She was rather top heavy when she stood up. |
In the set from my childhood, we had some beads that were mushroom shaped. I’m sure they are what inspired my love of mushrooms…with just a hint of shoe leather…
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| Me at age two – I love the similarities between this photo and the ones of Claire! |
Shell, the advanced photo options are part of the new post editor.
here's the blogger help pages for it: http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?answer=156829&cbid=1m2tw9ks255ig&src=cb&lev=topic
OH brother …. New Photo Uploader huh??? I need to go find that ….
Shell, Jeremy said you prob. have not installed/chosen the new photo uploader in blogger – that will allow you to choose your picture size…when you upload a photo and click on it within the post, you should have the option to choose one of 4 sizes you want it to display in, and also the option to add a caption. If you're not seeing this, you gotta figure out how to install the new photo uploader.
Hope that helps!
will THE MAN Help me ??? LOL
Well. make that magic work for me !! LOL
shucks …I was really hoping you'd have an easy answer for me !
Awesome post Trina!! 😀 I loved seeing all the adorable pictures of your little girl. She's precious!
Shell – When The Man and I redesigned the blog he adjusted the margins to be as big as possible. So when I upload photos and click on them to decide how big I want them, I choose XL and this is how big they get. It's like magic! 🙂
How awesome that your husband is taking such good care of things! I bet it is wonderful to be able to enjoy your baby and not worry that you will face a wrecked house when you finish recovering. I wish I lived near you so that he could rub off on my husband!
And Seth looks so cute and cuddly! I have a brother named Seth(nice choice). Claire looks to be enjoying those moments with you very much, so sweet…
Adorable pictures! I have to ask …How do you get your pictures so big??? Mine on my blog come out half the size of yours…