A Bit Like Christmas

Although we still haven't put a tree up, winter is most definitely here.  There was the Nutcracker:

 

Molly isn't old enough to actually dance in the production yet, but the older girls that help at her ballet studio were all there.  They were movie stars that night.  And despite falling asleep in my lap during act two, Molly proclaimed it to be her best day ever as I tucked her in bed.

 

We also had the seventh annual torture fest that is sitting on Santa's lap.  I thought this might be the year where everything was finally okay, but this is the best I could get:

 



And!  The opening weekend of our local ski hill.  Fun was had by all.

This month is always so busy with meetings and school plays and holiday parties and everyone getting sick, but it's also a ton of fun.  Cheers all around.

Happy Belated Blog Birthday to Molly

November 22: Molly is five (five!).  Time flies with this girl.

Molly Mo, my forever free spirit who constantly shows me the world in a way I've never seen it before.  Five years girl, here's to many more.

New School

So after all the hand wringing at the beginning of the school year, we decided this month to move Porter out of his neighborhood school and into a public Montessori program (different from the other school we considered earlier).  We were lucky to get a spot as we'd been on the wait list since last year, but it was still a very difficult decision.  While I feel like it is very much the right choice for us, Porter was (and is) pretty unhappy about the whole thing.  He doesn't understand why we are punishing him with this new school, doesn't care that it is good for him, and just wants to go back to the comfort of known routines and good friends.

This was one of our first post-toddler years "we know what's best for you" decisions we've laid down for Porter.  He's a good kid, does well in school, and I hate that he is so scared and confused about the whole thing.  It isn't a punishment, but it feels like one to him.  After his first day last week, I could see him fighting back the tears in his eyes when I picked him up.  I can remember that exact feeling, trying not to cry in public, from when I was a kid.  I asked him how it went, and he whispered "bad!"  But the second day, he was excited about a few things, and the third day it seemed a little better.  So although he still asks me when he can go back to his old school, I'm hopeful that the adjustment period won't be too terribly long.

And I have to keep in mind myself that kids change schools all the time for all sorts of reasons, and this isn't actually a very big deal.  I know Porter doesn't get it yet, but this will be a tiny blip in his childhood, hopefully one the points us in a better direction.

Halloween 2013

In which Cedar got really scared by an adult in a Minecraft costume, Porter got a little sick from the fake blood we squirted all over his mouth, it actually DID NOT rain on us while we trick or treated, and several of my children, when offered a choice of candy from the piles of Snickers and Kit Kats and Twix and full size bags of M&Ms, chose a lollipop and a piece of mint taffy.  Whose kids are these anyway?  But fun was had by all.

Siblings in Three Acts

Act One:  The girls share a room, and their beds are about 4 feet apart most days.  But lately I've been finding their beds like this in the morning:

 

They say they just like to be close together at night.  It is very sweet.

 

 

Act Two:  Porter wakes up first on Wednesday morning.  He's sitting at the counter drinking juice.  Molly wakes up, very happy.  She dances down the stairs with a big smile on her face, singing hello at everyone.  She walks by Porter, and he socks in her in the stomach.  Lays her out on the floor.  Just why?

 

 

Act Three:  Today Porter made a recording on the iPad of him and Molly fighting and Molly throwing a loud tantrum.  It is very realistic.  They turn it up loud, and leave the iPad hidden somewhere behind me.  Then I start getting mad at everyone about knocking it the hell off, and I hear them dying of the giggles together in the next room.  It has worked twice already.  Annoying.  And also cute.

 

 

Scene.

 



Hockey Mom, One Month In

Porter is currently playing hockey.  Finally Mom, geez.  Almost every single one of his little posse of friends plays hockey, and now he is finally in the know.  Most of the kids out there have already been playing for two or three years (don't get me started on childhood sports, hockey is not the only crazy one!), so Porter has to work really hard to keep up.  And he falls down a lot.  And comes home exhausted three times a week and eats all the things.  This has been a boon to picky eating, and I have to give it to him, he is not complaining.  He really seems to be trying and working, and we will see how it goes.  Hanging out at the ice rink with the girls is not as bad as I made it out in my head, but it is cold and I get no cell service.  I definitely won't be sad if he doesn't want to continue after this season is over, but I'm willing to give it a chance. 

In other news, we put an old mirror in the chicken yard.  And while all the birds were curious, it is the turkey that just can't let it go.  She hangs out by the mirror a lot, and we often have to force her in the coop at night as she'd rather sleep with her friend.  It's kind of cute and kind of sad, but we can't see taking it away from her now.

No Me and the Visible Friends

As our resident two year old and third child, Cedar has lately become much better about letting us know her every desire.  This consists mostly of loud declarations of no me.  No me!  Meaning, I would like to put on my shoes, even though it takes a painstaking 10 minutes and we are already late.  I would like to buckle my own car seat, even though I actually can't, but noooooo meeeeee (insert stiff as a board pose).  No me!  I can pour that full two gallon bottle of juice into a tiny cup.  Sigh.  This is such a cute age, except for the completely incompetent independence thing. 

My favorite thing about no me though, is its lesser used other meaning.  This is when Molly or Porter gets in trouble, and Cedar sidles up quietly.  She puts on her cute face and sing songs no meeeee.

Also, Molly has lately invented a troupe of imaginary friends.  This morning they were lined up 14 deep outside the front door waiting to play with her.  Or so I hear.  She calls them her visible friends.  Which amusingly drives Porter totally insane.  He keeps telling her, don't you get it?  That means you can see them!  To which Molly gives him a blank stare and carries on.  I'm all for friends.  Visible or not.

More Updates

Another series of updates in which I quit feeling guilty about not blogging.

We had a wonderful visit from Grandma Allison.  We ate too much pizza, but also hiked up a mountain.  And she took some pictures of us as a family, which never happens.

Also, Cedar was cute.

I ran in the Klondike Road Relay race.  It was exhausting and amazingly fun, and I took a two night trip out of town with only grown ups.  Woot.

Bryce and Porter are commercial salmon fishing with a friend right now, which is a male bonding experience that I'm so glad Porter gets to have.  Bryce was a commercial fisherman of a different sort back in the day, and even though this is a smaller (and safer!) kind of trip, it's a good one for them to be on.

With the boys out of town, Molly had a sleep-over with her best friend Kate.  They are four.  They didn't sleep.  I got kind of cranky about it.  But they were cute.

We just went through the post sleep-over day of hell and crying and hour long tantrums over I want to zip up the pajamas.  No you do it.  Nooooooooo.  And the house is quiet and I'm all alone.  And I'm out.  Peace.

Updates

We decided to keep Porter at our neighborhood school.  It was agonizing, but in the end, not really a difficult choice.  He was assigned to a second grade class with the first male teacher of his life, which I could tell was both exciting and a little scary.  School supplies were bought, everything was ready.

And then all three kids and I came down with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease.  Which if you don't have children, you likely haven't heard of.  A very much not serious illness, but one of the more completely annoying ones on my list.  And I'll leave it at that.  But it caused Porter to miss the first two days of school, which ended up making the whole thing a bit of a let-down.  After his first official day yesterday though, things seem to be going well, and I have high hopes for this year.

Cedar is continuing with more infrequent speech therapy, and is really improving.  I still can't understand a lot of what she says, but it is coming in leaps and bounds.  She seems more willing to try, which is a big deal.

The bears are still around, eating chickens in the neighborhood.  Fish and Game had to put one down in the touristy area yesterday for chasing people.  We still have on turkey left though, and we are protecting it fiercely.  And also looking forward to hibernation season.

Molly is still herself, my feisty one.  She has become really, really interested in weddings and being married, which seems normal enough for a little girl.  She likes to look at my wedding pictures, and she asked me if she could wear my dress someday.  She wonders if she has to get married in Oregon (like I did), will she be able to change clothes afterwards, will Grandma cook the food, and who will take care of Cedar after she doesn't live with us anymore.  She is also enraptured by love scenes in movies, the kind where the princess kisses Prince Charming at the end.  While Porter groans and hides his eyes, Molly swoons.  She seems too young to really care about that kind of thing, and in a lot of ways she doesn't, of course, really understand it, I think it's more about pretty clothes and princesses and fairy tales.  But then the other day she asked me if, after she married Thalen (a friend up the street who is her current fancy), could she put her mouth all over him?  Ahem.  The answer was no.

Choices

So school starts for Porter exactly one week from today.  I'm pretty excited.  We have had a fantastic summer by all measures, but I think we're kind of tired of hanging out with each other all day.  Porter and Molly have honed the art of irritating one other to such a degree that I pretty much have to force them to play in different rooms lest I go completely insane.  Porter's school got a new playground this summer, and he is very excited to see all his friends again.

But.  Just to make it easy, yesterday I had a major wrench thrown in the works.  At the end of last year, I really wasn't very happy with Porter's neighborhood school.  There had been some issues with other kids that had gone unresolved, I didn't much like the new principal, Porter's teacher was out on maternity leave half the time (totally not her fault), and I felt like his academic progress suffered.  I also felt like he wasn't getting inspired by anything, and given his reserved nature, was just getting overlooked in favor of the rowdy, talkative kids.

That said, Porter loves his school.  He has a great group of friends with great families.  There are a lot of good people that work at his school that spend extra hours hosting chess club and after school bike riding, and really care about all of the students.  And Porter is doing just fine.  He reads very well for his age, and gets stellar comments from his teachers at every conference.

Still, there are a few other choices for elementary school in Juneau, and at the end of last year I put him in the lottery for two of the optional programs.  Just to give myself options.  It's pretty hard to get in to these schools in second grade though, so I didn't have any high hopes.  And then yesterday, they called me to let me know Porter had gotten into the Charter School and that I had 48 hours to decide if I wanted the spot.

I still haven't made up my mind.  I couldn't sleep all night thinking about it.  I know a lot of people here, and have listened to everyone's stories good and bad.  And that's all it comes down to.  The good is that the academics would likely be better for Porter at the new school, which is huge, it's what school is all about.  But the bad is that it is tiny, and the social aspect of it makes me nervous.  They don't have the same range of after school activities, and he would no longer be able to take the bus.  I'm not sure if I would just be trading one set of problems for another set, all of which may not matter much in the long run given that Porter will likely do just fine anywhere.  Plus, Porter adamantly does not want to go to a new school (of course), and while this decision is not up to him, it breaks my heart a little just thinking about telling him.

A part of me feels like I'm making a really big deal out of something that just isn't.  But I don't know what to do.  And my big fear is that I will keep him at his neighborhood school, and then kick myself in a few months when things go sour again.  And our chance at the new school will be gone.  It's one thing to mess up decisions for yourself, but its a bit gut wrenching to mess them up for your kids.  I'll keep you posted.

Also, camping:

    

13.1

So, besides kids and chickens, every once in awhile I do something else too.  And last weekend I ran my first ever half marathon.  I had only ever run a couple of shorter races, and wasn't sure of passing etiquette or how to run through the water aid stations, but I had a blast.  I only run by myself normally, and running with a crowd of people (relatively speaking, this was still a small town event) was kind of exciting.  The route went right past my house, so Bryce and the kids stood on the highway to cheer me on.  I'm not sure where to go next, but I hope another race is in my future.

Life Lessons, Maybe

I haven't written a whole lot about it, but we have a small flock of poultry living in a coop out behind our house.  It's been about three years that we've been raising mostly egg laying chickens, and it has been fun.  The eggs are delicious, the kids like the birds, and I like to think that they benefit from seeing directly how a small portion of their food is raised.  The chickens have not been pets to us the way that Dawson is, but we are fond of them, more so I would guess than a farmer would be.

A few months back, we purchased two baby turkeys with the intention of raising them to eat over the holidays.  It turns out turkeys are pretty funny, and more attached to people than our chickens seem to be.  I kind of took a fancy to them.  But they became much, much bigger than the chickens very quickly, and being bred for meat eating, are fairly slow and maybe not so quick on the uptake.  Still, they got along with the chickens, and were doing fine. 

At the same time, our particular little area of town has had a big bear problem.  These things go in cycles, and according to the fish and game guy, some years are just bad luck.  Many problem bears, bears getting into garbage, bears eating chickens, bears at our house, etc. 

 

This guy surprised us at lunch one day.  So it wasn't really a shock that Bryce found two bears eating one of our turkeys yesterday morning.  They had knocked down the fence in our chicken yard, so some birds were wandering confused on the highway, another in the woods, and the rest were cowering in the coop.  Bryce gave them a good (and painful) scare, but the damage was done. 

Now, I know that predators eating livestock is nothing new, and that having chickens in your backyard is about the same as leaving garbage out as far as bears are concerned.  They're only doing what bears do.  But I was still a little bit sad, and frankly bummed, as that damn bear ate our Thanksgiving turkey.  Rest in peace little (big) dude. 

Our other problem was that now the bears had an awesome meal at our place, and we knew they would be back.  These are bears used to living in a semi-urban environment.  They aren't scared of dogs barking or people yelling, and it really scares me to have my little kids playing outside with those guys running around.  We are thinking about an electric fence, but in the meantime got a motion detector alarm at Home Depot.  We put it up last night, after the birds were asleep in the coop, and about an hour later we heard it go off.  We ran out in time to see a big bear high tailing it across the road.  I'm happy that it worked, and I'm wondering how long it will take for them just to move on.

After all this went down, I wasn't sure what to tell the kids.  They are used to hunting and fishing, and we've even eaten a few of our chickens before.  So when I told them that a bear ate our turkey, I did so very matter of fact.  And, as in most things, they took their cues from me.  They commented that it was sad, but really didn't seem to feel sad.  And they were ready to move on to the next thing pretty quickly.  But Porter got up twice after we put him to bed, scared about the bears coming in the night.  And Molly wouldn't go out to the car to get her shoes.  And I just don't know exactly what lessons they are learning about keeping livestock in the middle of a neighborhood.  It feels sort of halfway to nothing to me.  These birds that aren't quite pets and aren't quite farm animals getting eaten by wild animals that are too habituated to people instead of their natural environment. 

I guess it's better than nothing?  That's what I'm going to believe.

The Countdown

During the summer, while Bryce is very busy at work, I normally take the kids down south to see family and the big city.  It kills time, is fun (and exhausting), and we get to see a lot of people that we miss dearly.  But airplane tickets from Alaska (especially with three kids) are not cheap, summer here is so lovely, and Porter had a lot of camps and sports planned, so this year I decided to just stay home.  I thought it would make our summer long and glorious and never ending.  And it sort of did.  We've spent a lot of time outside in the sun.

But suddenly I realized that school starts again in about a month.  We are horribly behind on Porter's summer homework.  We haven't been to the library once (I really had a grand plan to go once a week to get new books).  We haven't been to the pool with the water slide, or gone berry picking, or on all those hikes I thought about.  I feel like we've been busy, and I do have some pictures of us at the beach, but honestly I can't really figure out what we've been doing this whole time.  I haven't even called my sister, and she moved to a new state weeks ago (I'm really sorry Caitlin).

So with one month left, hopefully I will get it together.  I can feel the allure of the school schedule calling me, but I'd love to enjoy this last bit of sunshine with all my kiddos at home.  Library visits are optional.

Learning Curve

This summer I've been giving Porter (sort of) daily homework to do.  It's a bummer, but he needs to do it.  They are little packets, and honestly if he'd just sit down and concentrate they wouldn't take him very long.  But he complains and gets frustrated and belly-aches about it forever, and we end up sparring about it all day.  Such is life.  I haven't come up with the solution.

Today, though, he discovered an amazing technique.  One that I didn't really come into until college.  Cleaning as school work procrastination.  I remember cleaning toilets when I should have been writing term papers.  It was probably the only time I cleaned toilets, but somehow that task seemed preferable to the paper writing, and it suddenly seemed to need doing.

So Porter was struggling with the math homework (adding two two-digit numbers seems to be tripping us up), and all of a sudden he was clearing the table of breakfast dishes.  And then putting away all the toys in the living room that the girls had made into their "campsite."  When he got out the Windex and starting cleaning the computer desk, he looked at me like he was getting away with something.  Like I didn't realize he wasn't doing his homework anymore.

I know little dude.  I know.  And I kind of felt like those penguins in Madagascar (if you're familiar with that sort of thing).  Just smile and wave boys.  Smile and wave.

Toilet Paper and Diapers

So yesterday I did that thing, where I realized we were very, very dangerously low on toilet paper, diapers, milk and well, food.  I really didn't want to go to the store, but calculated that we could make it until this morning without stuffing dish towels in Cedar's pants.  At which time we would make a big time Costco run.

This morning: Cedar wakes up and immediately throws up all over me.  And then every 15 minutes until about now.  Porter and Molly ate graham crackers and microwave popcorn for lunch.  I did a lot of laundry.  And luckily she is so dehydrated that we don't need many diapers.  Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

The World of Boys

I grew up in a house with girls.  I never had a brother or cousins that lived close by.  So I don't have much, if any, experience with little boys.  Porter, for the most part, is pretty mellow and easy going, and I haven't struggled much with the male part of his nature.  But I did find this drawing of his the other day:

I'm not sure how well it will show up here, but it involves violence of many kinds.  And includes his sister.  He was impressed with himself and thought it was funny and fairly unremarkable.  Bryce and I puzzled over it though with half nervous laughter, wondering if we should be worried or what.  I mean, what the hell?  When I was his age, I remember drawing pictures of rainbows and sunshine and an inch of blue sky at the top of every page. 

So I brought it up one day with a couple of friends who both have boys older than Porter.  I described the picture, and they just nodded.  Totally normal boy stuff.  One friend showed me some pictures from her boys that looked amazingly similar, with people falling off cliffs and shooting guns.  I even googled it, and read blog entries just like this one, with people wondering what happened to their sweet boy that only ever watched PBS.  Who knew?  Boys.  It's a whole new world.

Heat Wave

The title pretty much says it all.  Here in southeast Alaska we put up with a whole lot of really awful weather, even in the summer.  There is rain and snow and more rain, and a little more rain.  Last summer, it rained so much that a lot of die-hard Alaskans I know were moping and talking of moving down south.  But then, we had the past two weeks.  Such a stretch of warm, sunny weather that people start getting a little crazy with it.  And really, when your life looks like this, there isn't any other place on God's green earth I would rather be.

The past few days have even gotten above 80 degrees, which I swear feels closer to 100 here.  Yesterday we spent 10 hours at the beach, and I even swam in the ocean, head underwater and all.  But after days and days of boating, bonfires, swimming, playing, and sitting on the beach, I am officially sun burnt and out of clean laundry and groceries.  My kids have gone to bed at 10pm for so many nights in a row, it's starting to seem normal.  And we haven't really had a meal that wasn't hot dogs over the fire or a bag of grapes in eons.  And so today, even though it is another scorcher, we are laying low.  Cleaning the house.  Nursing our sunburns.  Eating real food.  And getting ready for tomorrow.

Also today: dealing with the giant pot half filled with leftover crab cooking water and crab detritus that sat on the deck sweltering all day yesterday and became home to five thousand flies.  Seriously, I'm not sure anything else smells quite like it.  But still loving Alaska.

Honeymoon: Over

So, last week I was basking in the first days of summer glow.  It was nice outside, nice to sleep in, nice not to have a schedule.  I bragged about it.  Of course.

And then on Friday, I took all the kids to Fred Meyer in the afternoon to look at bikes for Porter and pick up a few groceries.  No biggie.  I had been promising this event to Porter for months, and he was super excited.  We picked out a bike, got some food, and made it through the check out.  Then Cedar decided to climb up on the truck ride (thank you so much for this Fred Meyer), which I did not have 50 cents for.  She clung to it for dear life, and after five minutes of pleading and bribing, I had to pry her off, finger by finger.  Which then meant I had to carry her, kicking and screaming, like a sack of potatoes, under one arm.  I pushed the cart with my other hand, and Porter wheeled the bike.  We got out of the door, and Molly had some unknowable crisis, the only solution to which was sitting on the ground and refusing to move while wailing loudly.  Cars were coming, it was pouring rain, and I had no free hand to deal with this situation.  Strangers smiled in pity. 

And just like that, the honeymoon was over.

Also, Monday morning: summer camp.  I am the very last parent to drop their kid off.  At least he was wearing the green t-shirt.  August 20, here we come.

Peace.

Talking and Sitting

Cedar has seen the incredibly nice people at our infant learning program twice now, and things are going well.  She is behind on her speech, but it doesn't seem like it is anything she won't figure out eventually.  The speech therapist gave me some great tips on getting her to try new words, and it is already working.  Although I'm not entirely sure that she really needs any of this, it does force me to sit down and focus on my quiet third child.  With everything else that is going on, I realized that I just don't spend much time doing toddler things with her.  We read books for older kids, play with older kids, and spend a lot of time shuttling older kids around to their activities.  Even when she plays, it's often under Molly's direction.  Bryce got out some baby board books the other day, and she was pointing to things are repeating the simple words.  So I think this will help all of us in some way and can only be a good thing.

Two of the therapists were at my house this morning, and one of them saw Cedar sitting on the floor, like this:

She asked me, "does she always sit like that?"  And honestly, I wasn't sure.  Just not on my radar.  But I said "I think so."  And apparently this is a THING.  It is bad for their knees and causes bad hip development, and kids do it because they lack trunk control that they really should have by now, and I should really discourage it.  And then she sat like that about fifty more times, and the lady kept giving me this look and having me straighten out her legs.  And although these people are so totally sweet and are awesomely coming to my house and working with my daughter, I kind of wanted to show them this picture of me that is hanging above Cedar's bed.

 
I mean, I am way, way older than Cedar here.  I remember sitting like this as a kid.  I remember grown-ups commenting on it and telling me how flexible I would be (which did not come true).  And I think I turned into an adult with decent trunk control.  I googled toddler sitting, and immediately got all these hits about this very thing and why it is bad.  But I'm just going to have to go with my instincts on this one, and not add this to my list of things to worry about. 

Also, school is out!  Summer vacation!  Despite a bout with stomach flu that knocked a couple of us out earlier in the week, I am loving it.  Ask me again in a couple of weeks I suppose, and I may have a different answer.  But summertime in Juneau makes all that winter worth the while.  Enjoy.

Ballet

It is 10:30 p.m. and the house is finally quiet after Molly's big dance recital of the year.  There is a lot of formality to the whole thing, with dress rehearsals and make up instructions and a big, dark stage with a "curtain that opened all by itself!"  But Molly is in the very youngest group of dancers, and there was one little girl that refused to even go on, and another whose hair piece fell out on stage and cried (loudly) through the whole routine.  It was not so much dancing as just an experience.  One that most of the little girls, Molly included, found incredibly exciting.

There were older girls in the recital too, though.  Much older.  And they were really dancing, leaping through the air, lithe and incredibly graceful.  They were beautiful.  I was never a dancer growing up, was never graceful or lithe or glided anywhere.  And it's kind of hard to imagine a child of mine ending up like that.  But you just never know.  Dance on little girl.  Dance on.

Growing Into It

Now that Cedar is growing out of babyhood, it's fun to speculate on who she might become.  She was a fairly easy baby, and has always been quiet and shy around strangers.  She understands everything, and seems to be taking it all in, perfecting just what she wants to do in her mind before execution.

Partly because of this quietness, and maybe partly because Molly talks incessantly and in her place, and maybe just because, she isn't talking as much as a two year old really ought to.  A lot of the time, she doesn't need to talk.  But lately, she's been getting frustrated with me.  She is wanting to tell me things, and I have no clue what they are.  So the speech therapist is coming to our house next week.  And we will see if it changes my quiet little baby.

Yesterday, I took Molly, Cedar and a friend to the playground.  The older girls were busy running around, and Cedar took a fancy to this little bit of equipment where you balance on a rubber coated chain.  There are more chains to grab onto, and you walk across like on a balance beam.  There weren't many kids around, and she stayed there: walking across, then starting over, walking again, over and over.  She seemed to be taking it seriously, one foot in front of the other, not falling off.  She practiced this same skill for almost half an hour straight.  It was odd to see so much concentration on a child so young.  But she seemed very proud of herself, and who am I to judge?

Also, as an addition to this sweetness, she also recently bit me in the face.  Hard.  I screamed.  And as my sister put it, "hmmm, monkeys do that."  So who knows what she will turn out like in the end.  I like to imagine her as an artist, leaning over her easel for hours.  But I think she still has the whole world of possibilities in front of her.

In the world of cooking and eating, you have to try this: Crockpot Chicken Tikka Masala.  I think chicken thighs hold up better in the crockpot, but otherwise, wow.  So easy.  No precooking of ingredients.  Makes a lot.  Makes your house smell great for hours.  Yum.

 

Sweet Birthday Cedar

Today is Cedar's second birthday.  I didn't tell her (not that she really gets it yet) though.  Bryce is out of town, and we are going to celebrate this weekend.  And if the big kids knew we were delaying, I'd never hear the end of it.  They've been telling her for days that she gets presents and cake on her birthday, and it just sounds like a big mess to confuse everyone.  So it's been my little secret today, which is sweet in a way.  I let her pick out some new shoes and the girls got cake pops at Starbucks while we were shopping.  They thought they had just begged long enough I guess.

So the true birthday pictures will come later.  But here is my baby, my last baby, on the first day of her second year on this earth.  With many more to come.

Happy Birthday Cedar!  We love you more each day.