A Walk in the Park with Ritter

So my mom (aka Ritter) came up last week for a quick visit, and on Wednesday morning we headed out to a nearby lake to take a walk and play at the park. It was a grayish day, but still felt great to be outside (unlike the 102 degree day today).

We started out like this:

Feeling adventurous, we decided to deviate from the concrete path and take the jogger off-roading down the horse-trails.

All was well, until we noticed all of these things crawling all over us:

Ticks! Well, two city-gals, we panicked. We bolted for the side-walk, quickly found a park-bench and proceeded to strip the babies and search for ticks. Not that it was hard to find them at first. We probably pulled many more than 10 off of Noelle, and quite a few more and Mom and myself. Clara was some-what safe in her stroller seat (Bella had gotten out to walk right through the grasses), but later at lunchtime, naked, we were shocked to see one crawling up her face! Ick! 

Even as I write this my skin is crawling! After doing an initial tick-search, we finished walking around the lake and did end up in the sandy park.

Thankfully, none of the ticks had time to dig into us (i.e., BITE and suck our blood), but by the time I got to Padme, I found several had already found a good spot and started feeding. I called the vet, who graciously pulled out 4, said there were probably dozens more that we wouldn't find (she's brown and black after all), and gave her a dose of Frontline, and gave me some recommendations on how to kill any more we found. Sadly, I was not super excited to have Padme dropping ticks around my house - dead or alive, so she was banished to the porch and garage for a couple of days. Poor dog considers herself a lap-dog, and was not very happy about being quarantined outside. 

So following the de-ticking, baths, scouring and vacuuming the car, spraying tick-killing spray on the jogger, etc. We still found a couple of ticks AFTER all of that! And Padme has been leaving dead ones around anyway. I did some research on ticks of Nebraska, and it appears that the risk of Lyme disease is incredibly rare here. So I breathed easy, for 2 days, until I found out that my neighbor's father was diagnosed with it! However, I have to say that I would rather go outside and take the risk (although avoiding walking through the grasses) than spend the entire summer indoors. We love our nature walks too much! I can guarantee that we do thorough checks, though!

Name Plaques

A sweet friend of my moms has had these beautiful name plaques made for my girls... Lily got hers yesterday so I couldn't resist getting all their pictures before bedtime.

Also, I've noticed when people are in trouble: if you just go by middle names, we have quite the turn of the century name collection:

Minerva,
Elizabeth,
and Jane.

But such brand-new baby sweetness!

Days without Lily

This morning I had to wake everyone up to get Lily to school on time after a super-busy weekend. After running to take her to her teacher, I hop back in the car:

"mom, did you drop Lily off?"
"yep!"
"mom, did you take Lily to her teacher standing outside?"
"yes, Noelle, I did!"

.... Quiet as we drive home...

As we reach our street, she says,
"Mom, when we go a our home I miss Lily. I want Lily a stay with us forever and ever."

Sigh. Me too, Noelle, me too. ;)

MC Camping Trip

Another camping trip at Louisville SRA - the only issue I forgot about was the midnight trains. Poor Clara woke up scared to death! Despite one night we aborted and came home (after Archer stood out in the rain by the car), we had a great weekend of hanging out with friends!

2012_06June_MCCampingTrip

On Wheels...

From 2012_06June

It seems as if all three of our girls are enjoying being on wheels the most this summer. Clara apparently wants to skip walking altogether and just move from crawling (her current mode) to biking. She has attempted to shove Noelle off her tricycle several times, so I recently rejoiced at finding two push-toys for her to ride at a friend's garage sale (thanks Michelle!). She loves those, but still prefers the big girl trike, so Archer setup the Disney princess bike for Noelle, I found a good-sized bike for Lily (with NO training wheels!) at the Goodwill, and now Clara can climb the tricycle to her heart's content. They all keep growing up! Clara takes a few steps at a time before she reverts to crawling. Noelle just needs to figure out how to stop braking on her new princess bike. Lily just needs to figure out how to ride without a parent holding her up! It's so fun to see them accomplishing new things!

Mother's Day 2012

This year Archer really outdid himself. I have learned in the last 7.5 years of marriage that he really WANTS to do whatever I really want - and we are both better off if I just tell him what that is, rather than waiting for him to guess. So, when I read on a blog about an absolutely fantastic idea for how he and the girls could pamper me on Mother's Day, I sent that link right along to his email, and was left to enjoy a fantastic day. Yummy italian food, a trip to the botanical gardens to see some gorgeous roses, and a home-made spa day with two young masseuse and Archer whipping up a sweet sugar-scrub. Lily was especially thrilled to bring me hot towels from the dryer and to come baby-sit me to "see if you need anything, Mama". :) Such sweetness! Half the fun was just seeing how the girls LOVED being able to do something special for Mama.

Mother's Day 2012

School Days

School Days

So this spring we stepped up the home "school" a notch, and had regular school time with the big girls, largely while Clara was sleeping but sometimes she got to participate! She is down to one nap a day now, though, so I am trying to figure out how to include her in the "school" part of the day! We are almost done with our kindergarten curriculum (My Father's World, for those who are interested), and have decided to officially homeschool Lily next year rather than send her to public kindergarten.

However, our local public schools have a three week summer orientation for incoming kindergarteners, so since Lily was really wanting to "go to school with a teacher what is not Mama, and ride the bus", we decided to send her to the orientation. So far she loves it, but is utterly exhausted - it's full day K here - and by the 3rd day she was melting down every time she got in the car at the end of the day. A couple of the days she actually fell asleep during their rest time, but by last Thursday she was begging to not go to school, but to put her pajamas back on and go back to bed! One more week! I think it's been a good experience for her - she has learned to navigate the playground with "much bigger boys, like 1st graders" chasing her, buying her lunch in the cafeteria, and taking care of her lunch and snacks in her back-pack. Noelle and Clara have somewhat adjusted to playing with each other kindly rather than relying on their big sister/constant entertainment, and I have enjoyed 1) being forced to get everyone up and out of the house early (no bus for summer school), and 2) focusing more on my little girls while Lily has been gone.

Next year we plan to use Sonlight's kindergarten curriculum, and while I plan on year-round school for our family, this summer is turning out to be largely extra-curricular "school"! Besides Lily's 3 weeks of kindergarten, both Lily and Noelle will attend Vacation Bible School, then we all are going to Michigan for Family Camp at Cedar Campus, then 2 weeks of swimming lessons, then it will be August with TWO weddings and LOTS of traveling across the country to Dallas and California/Colorado/Wyoming!