Hale Family Tales

To be honest, the last few weeks have been pretty rough around here. Ryan has been working a ton and gone a lot, we have been re-aligning our behavior and discipline techniques for summer break (meaning there has been lots of trouble!), and I have been hot, tired, and frankly, pretty cranky. Not one issue too big to handle, but pretty daunting when they are piled on top of one another and mixed with pregnancy hormones.

But, both of my girls said something very sweet to me today and it was like a salve over all the difficulty we’ve had recently.

Hannah – I basically took a shower, washed my hair, let it air dry, then threw it up into a pony tail before taking Ellie to gymnastics this afternoon. Not my normal M.O for leaving the house, but it is hot and I was doing housework all day. Hannah told me that she liked my hairstyle and that I should wear it that way more often. Love really is blind. Ryan had no comment when I told him but did manage to keep a straight face!

Ellie – Ellie got a rope burn on her thigh at gymnastics from climbing the rope (about 2/3 of the way to the ceiling, YIKES!). It was fine until she was changing her clothes for bed. Ellie is tough but it was really hurting her. I put some ointment and a band-aid over it so it wouldn’t bother her in bed. When we were done, she threw her arms around me and whispered in my ear that “you are the best muther eber!”

Two months ago, these two big sisters…

…were so glad the wait was finally over.

Well, almost over.

There was customs and immigration, of course.

And, finally, there we were in the middle of DIA – a family of five (well, 6, really)!

Something for everyone:

-Julia cheers.

-Ellie practices her letters and admires Vanna’s dresses.

-Hannah works through the puzzles.

-I reminisce about watching this show when I was at my grandma’s house when I was a child. I always thought she should go on the show because she was so good at solving the puzzles. Hannah says that about me. I guess I sort of like being on the other side of it now.

We found a great frozen yogurt store at Cherry Creek Mall yesterday called Cherry on Top. It was a great way to combat the 95 degree heat and you get to do the flavors and the toppings yourself. Definitely a kid’s paradise!

Julia got in on the action too. Ice cream is a very good way to practice the sign for “More”! Strawberry (with mini chocolate chips) was her flavor of choice – and Mommy’s, too!

I have been pretty clumsy lately. Last night, as the girls were going to bed, I knocked the vase that Ellie had hand-painted and uses to store her quarters off the edge of a cabinet and broke it. No chance for repairs.

My sweet Ellie was so gracious about my mistake. She didn’t cry, said it was ok, and gee, she could always paint another one.

I make mistakes all the time that she doesn’t know about. This one hit pretty close to home for her. I think it is especially sweet when a child expresses kindness and graciousness to her parent’s faux-pas.

Is there really a way to completely baby proof before a baby is mobile? I am not certain that you can do too much until they are crawling and then the requirement is to just follow the baby around at first and find and remove the “hot spots”. Julia was playing in Ellie’s little school area yesterday afternoon and Ellie was so sweet about removing things that would hurt Julia. She is a great guardian of her baby sister. She is very proud of herself when she finds something, holds it up, and says, “Choking Hazard!”

Julia made at least three laps around the house this morning. So far, she is more following us around rather than going off on her own to explore. We have a sunken living room and she can go up the step, and we are working on teaching her “feet first” down the step. Earlier, no one noticed that she was close to the step and she went nose first (onto carpeting). There was so much comforting done by sweet Hannah that Mom hardly had a chance to make it better.

Julia was very ready for her nap and I am sure she will sleep well after all that exercise.

Hannah hates (and I don’t use that word lightly) to go to Home Depot. We built a house when she was 3 and I think we burned her out on the place. We love to tease her about her passionate response to a trip to Home Depot. We can lay it on pretty heavily, and she can complain heavily as a result.

On Memorial Day, we headed there to get the building materials to build a small swing set (one that we can move in a year or so and add on to, but that will keep them busy this summer). We hadn’t mentioned our intention to put in a swing this summer.

After light teasing as we pulled into the parking lot, I casually said to Hannah to be careful about too much grumbling…

We moseyed around the lumber department for a few minutes when she realized what what we were looking for. She was very surprised and of course pleased.

As we were checking out, I told the girls that they should give Daddy lots of thanks for the new swing set. Ellie replied, “Yeah, I think we should give him a quarter.”

Truth is, Ryan loves to watch the kids play on a swing set. He’s a sucker for it, in fact. Which is a good thing – they are a pain in the neck to build!