Okay so there are golden birthdays, but is there such a thing as a golden due date? If so, this is Anneliese's. It's October 7th again, and she's almost 7!
Anneliese these days is made up of big feelings, rainbows, chapter books, dolls and doll dress-ups, spaghetti, coconut, craft projects, an odd blend of sassy and compliant responsibility, a head of loose teeth (though not enough missing for her taste), running, swimming, dancing, Olympics, creativity, bright smarts, and one of the funniest kindest hearts I've ever known. She's into girl strength and also silly girlishness. She's a beautiful singer. She loves school and sleeping late. She does cartwheels the way some people talk with their hands. She's the object of affection and attention from both her siblings. She is our middlest, and she is beloved.
I can't believe it was seven years ago she was inside me and we only knew her as Beanie, the awaited baby daughter I was so excited to finally have.
Once in a while, something your heart has huge hopes for, turns out to be exactly as good as you'd hoped. For me, being Anneliese's mom is one of those things.
Last week in Anneliese's kindergarten class, she was the "owl of the week" (because just being student of the week is so last millenium?) and she got to ("got to") make a collage and bring a stuffed toy home and write in a journal about it, and also answer a questionnaire about herself.
One of the prompts was to name a dream she has for herself one day. Her answer? "See a rainbow." When I pointed out that she has indeed seen a rainbow before already, she said "Yes! And it was a dream come true!"
So, that's basically all you need to know about Anneliese and her delightful little heart these days.
But here is some more anyway:
She is reading, more and more. She is writing, more and more. Suddenly the world seems hers for the taking. (Hashtag: literacy, amiright?) She sings and dances and makes funny facial expressions and talks with her hands.
She plays with her American Girl doll and her baby doll and chats about Shopkins and Pokemon. She can build lego sets now, with only a little help from big brother. She can fix her own food and find her own tv show and she has her own email address, which she uses to send very important emails covering important topics such as I LOVE YOU and also I LOVE PARSNIPS and also HI BYE LOVE ANNELIESE, but with far fewer correctly spelled words than that there.
She remains obsessed with rainbows. And wearing as many colors as possible. In another of her school projects, she did a collage (why so many collages, teachers of America? whyyyy) or list type thing of her favorites -- naming her favorite color as a rainbow and her favorite animal as a unicorn.
She will not fit into someone else's fill in the blank, NO SHE WILL NOT. (In the most delightful way possible.)
And she is trying very hard to seem grown up, and to grow up, and to be taken seriously, while also clinging tight to a few vestiges of babyhood: her thumb, and Hattie, and dress-ups.
Anneliese seems to approach the world with the assumption that the world is out to delight her. And, therefore, it usually does. I think this is a good way to live. I think I would like to be more like her when I grow up.
I can't believe six years ago tonight she was still inside me, and now here she is, a bright-eyed funny smiling little kindergarten human, making the world better because she is in it. She is everything.
Summer is over. Well, not really, there is still a month of summer weather left, but summer break is over, and school starts this week, and so we have crossed off as many of the remaining bucket list items as we can. I needed this summer to be something redemptive after last year, which was a sh!t show of emotions and baby soothing and feeling like I was failing everyone around me, and then feeling resentful about the failing, and yeah. This year was better.
I had a page in my notebook where I jotted down ideas the kids named as things they wanted to do this summer (a few times, someone got ahold of a pen and added ideas himself), and we got to almost all of them.
We also renamed it TheBasket List because at the beginning of the summer Anneliese could never remember what it was called, so she kept saying that, and it stuck for the rest of us even though she rolls her eyes and refuses to partake of the cutesy rename herself. HER LOSS. CUTESY IS FUN, YO.
And truthfully we didn't even look much at the list because we were busy just hanging out and having fun. Montreat was a freaking delight. Our family road trip was more fun than I ever could have dreamed. And lots of little fun things in between the travels too:
1.) Ride on a ferry. This list was born in April when Nathan, indignant that I would go to Seattle and ride on a ferry without him, made a page in my notebook and put FERRY as the first thing on it. We... didn't actually get to this. But we have Outer Banks camping plans next month, and we will ferry to Okracoke and then Hatteras. The ferry will happen! I promise, buddy!
2.) Visit Northfield. Check and check. 'Twas delightful. Here are all the kids at St. Olaf:
Oh Charlotte. I don't even know, y'all. She just doesn't stop.
Road trip blogs still to come. (They are all half written and still need pics and there's a lot to sort through so eh.)
3.) Crayon A. This is a craft I have been intending to do for years with Anneliese and we finally did it, and it turned out great, and she loves it, and I love it.
NAILED IT. Suck it, Pinterest, I own you.
4.) Go camping. Not yet - this will be with the ferry ride next month.
5.) Eat purple carrots. Okay so Anneliese asked for this for weeks, and I wrote it down for her, even though you can't get any carrots at the farmer's market, much less purple ones, until fall. So this is still to come also. We did, however, make several stews with parsnips, and Anneliese has a new favorite vegetable. (She is an odd child.)
6.) Strawberries. There were no carrots, but there were strawberries, and Anneliese used them to bake her very first dessert for all of us. Bisquick shortcakes, and warm strawberries, and cream she whipped herself, and oh she was so proud.
7.) Cinderella movie. Anneliese saw this with Grandma. That counts, right? (I still haven't seen it.) (I am totally interested, but secretly more for the Frozen short than for the movie itself. Don't judge me.)
8.) Rise Biscuits and Donuts. This is a place in Durham with apparently really great breakfast treats. We never made it there, but I am counting our Duck Donut outing as a check mark on the list for new treat places.
9.) Learn ponytails. Anneliese did it! This is a life skill, I mean really.
(If you can't see the embedded video, click here to watch it on YouTube.)
10.) Learn shoe tying. Yeah, no. This did not happen.
11.) Watch Jurassic Park (not with the girls). Yes finally, Nathan, of years-long dinosaur obsession, has seen the original Jurassic Park movie. It totally scared him. But I think he thinks it was worth it. (It still is delightfully scary to me too.) We have listened to the soundtrack a thousand times this summer since then. Currently the girls' favorite song to dance to. We are That Family, apparently.
12.) Tropical Pick'n Chicken. It's a new (to us) local chain restaurant near our house, with Caribbean food and such. Nathan is enamored with it. It's just okay for me. But! We went! Summer dreams coming true over here y'all!
13.) Build legos. Um, duh. Done and done.
14.) Sleepovers. Yes, Nathan and Anneliese, every Friday, all summer (all year actually, but the summer was no exception). These two are best buddies, and never moreso than on Friday nights. We don't understand how they spend all day every day together and still have things to talk about into the wee hours. They say more to each other than they ever do to any of the rest of us.
15.) Baking contest. This got added to the list in summer's eleventh hour, and we still did it!
16.) Read lots of books. CHECK. We have been very library busy. And library days are the best days, aren't they? Let's not forget the afternoon I found the kids all outside reading their library books sprawled on the sidewalk WITH THEIR BEDDING, why children, why?
Here, have some pictures from the beach. This will be our last spring Bumgarner beach week -- with school schedules all varying between the cousins, we are moving it to August next year. More reliable for warm weather, and a schedule that doesn't rely on spring break, which is different for all the cousins in different school systems. This house at Holden Beach has been really good to us over the years, and for our last April trip, the weather was spot-on perfect.
Reading on the beach means he is a child after my own heart.
We have reached a magical age where they play together and don't get sand on me, and don't... need me. So I can close my eyes and the beach is relaxing again. WE MADE IT.
Hey Nathan Y U look like a teenager?
Charlotte talked Brad and Marija's ears off, but what are rocking chairs for?
This trip is seriously one of the best things we do every year. Thank you, Dad. For real. We love it and we love the time together and we love you. <3 p="">
Well, we had ourselves a merry little Christmas. We did the traveling portion of the celebrations before Christmas this year instead of after, which is different for us -- it made the shopping and prep part feel a little rushed, but once we got out of town and got back, we were kind of glad to be home and settled and relax here, just our little family. It felt like far less frenzy than it does some years.
I managed to get all the way to Huntersville, for four family celebrations within three days, and I packed no pants. Zero. NONES PANTS. I wore leggings and a tunic to church on Sunday, and went straight from there out of town. I had packed a bunch of shirts and sweaters but no pants to go with them, and no other tunics or long tops, and no room in our schedule of gatherings to run to Target, so! I wore that tunic and leggings for daaaaaysssss and the good news is I didn't even burn it afterwards.
Anyway. Pictures of Christmas. My outfit on repeat x1000 is barely pictured. Because I can't stand the sight of it. Because obviously.
Reading on his new Kindle, wearing airplane slippers and reindeer antlers... #doingitright
Anneliese had been asking for colored streaks in her hair for months, and then Santa put hair chalks in her stocking! She was... excited.
It might be Christmas if your parents let you ride a scooter in the house.
Charlotte also got a new baby doll (she named it Claire, her middle name) and an Elsa nightgown which we passed off as a dress-up dress. We are smart.
That awkward moment when you're trying to pretend- straighten your hair and your dad keeps photo-bombing you.
Giant wall atlas! Hey Nathan, your Bumgarner is showing.
These magnatiles we gave Nathan were a hit with *all* the kids. RECOMMEND.
Taking pretend selfies with Daddy. Ahhh child of the new millenium.
All the kids/spouses/grandkids were able to make it to Dad's this year! Whoa!
Anneliese and Grandma
Decorating cookies at Ashley's house with my mom. I'm not saying my decorating was the best, but... it kinda was.
And then I came home and put on jeans and it was awesome, the end.
Halloween 2014! Besides being super annoyed at how even Halloween has become a season --
Everyone, stop that! Stop with your pumpkin drinks in August, stop with your Christmas music in October, stop with the Halloween parties weeks before Halloween! It is ONE DAY. The children do not need to wear their costumes and do Halloween activities at three fall festivals and then preschool class and then dance class and then choir. No. Stop. By the time it comes around, they would be over it. A class party or school event, and trick-or-treating. That's it. I put my foot down at the other things.
-- I'm actually not a scrooge, just normal, and the kids and their costumes were really fun this year. Even though none of them were Elsas. In a year when everyone was Elsa! We are basically unamerican, I know.
Charlotte wanted to be a superhero, in the generic sense apparently, and so I googled for ideas and realized I could mostly put hers together myself: I dyed a onesie and printed the C in a superhero font on iron-transfer paper (I actually ran into some snags but those are boring so that's the gist of it). I ordered some cuffs and a belt from an etsy seller, and cut up some socks for her leg decoration. She already had the cape. Came out super cute, this little Super Booler.
(We decided her kryptonite is getting her shoes on the correct feet.)
Anneliese asked to be Rainbow Brite months and months ago and I kept deterring her, because it's 2014, not 1984, and that is not a costume you can just procure unless you want to spend a zillion dollars on ebay and I obviously don't. But after many repeated asks, and many sad faces, and my friend Jeanine convincing me it wouldn't be that hard, I decided to put a Rainbow Brite together as best I could. And it was totally good!
I ordered a clearance t-shirt dress from Old Navy, which was originally a light sky blue that was easy enough to dye royal. I bought some faux fur Santa trim and glued it to the hem. I found a bow and glued a star to it. And put rainbow leg warmers on her arms and legs. Jeanine made the red belt/suspender part for us because she is the best, and I ironed a cheap etsy patch onto it. I used leftover superhero onesie fabric and cut-up ribbon to make the chest piece, which I almost omitted because it looked sloppy, but then needed it to hold the suspenders up (it's just some iron-on velcro holding it together). Pretty good for a mom who doesn't sew, right?
And Nathan wanted to be a pilot (who also designs airplanes) (I told him that costume doesn't exist so he might have to dress like just a pilot, and tell people the also-designs-planes part himself) so I did the extremely crafty mom thing of clicking through to Amazon Prime. Be very impressed.
His shirt says pilote -- in Spanish -- and I have no idea why (that's not what was on the package) but we went with it.
All the costumes don't family coordinate, and Mark and I don't like to dress up, so I know we fail the internet when it comes to Halloween, but I don't care because they all had costumes they loved and I got to feel like a halfway-crafty mom in the process.
So yeah, it was a fun Halloween. The girls did their costume parade at school on Monday (Monday?!) and then for actual Halloween we did our normal trick-or-treat loop around the block, trying the whole time to convince the kids we were going to eat all their candy when they went to bed, and replace it with vegetables, which totally gets a rise out of Nathan (but not the girls) and amuses us. We're great parents, is what I'm saying.
1.) Anneliese picked out a new winter hat with some Amazon birthday money. Raise your hand if you never could have guessed she'd pick one like this:
2.) I took Nathan on a date to the symphony last weekend. It was a super crappy day and a really lovely break from the super crappy day. He was cellodorable, admiring all the instruments.
3.) I read the Astronaut Wives Club this weekend and it's far from brilliant writing -- mostly a series of vignettes about the first astronaut families in the sixties -- but I didn't need it to be a great novel, I was totally captivated anyway. I am now craving anything about the space race, I kinda want to watch Apollo 13 tonight, and I can't stop wikipedia-ing all the folks for a dose of Where Are They Now. Also I want to go back to the space center at Cape Canaveral (Mark and I visited in 2010 and it was great, but I think it would be even more great for me this week).
So yeah, I'm hoping they make this into a tv show as has been promised (then delayed, but we'll see). The stories might actually tell better as a series instead of a book. 4.) Anneliese and Ali and I went for a fall walk a few days ago, just as the leaves were starting to change. You would not believe all the things a five-year-old has to tell her infant cousin about leaves changing, but it's a lot.
5.) We closed the pool last week and I miss it already.
6.) Nathan just read the "junior novel" version of the Lego movie and he seems to have internalized its message differently in print than on the screen. He now considers himself a Master Builder and keeps building things and telling us how he VISUALIZED them and that's how he designed them and oh man it cracks us up. (In a good way! He is sweet and smart. I'd hire him for all my aeronautical engineering needs, and no I'm not kidding.)
PS I got a haircut and highlights, as per my pre-birthday usual.
7.) After the slowest loudest construction project in the history of history, and many early-morning and late-night trips in my PJs to fuss at workers causing a ruckus outside of approved times ("I know you're just doing your job, but WE LIVE HERE" = me, sick of hearing myself talk), the house across the street is finally done! It was featured in a Parade of Homes thing, so we went to check it out, and it was nice in the way that fancy houses are always nice, but not our taste at all: some odd mashup of clean/modern and also totally dowdy. It's hard to explain. But anyway, if you want to live directly across the street, the house has a million dollar view!
Yes really.
8.) A few weekends ago when I was in Charlotte, I stopped at Ikea for some new cubes/shelving, which are lovely. (I got a teal cube system! TEAL! For my bathroom! Which I am now 99% sure won't fit but whatever, it's TEAL.) While I was there I also got Anneliese a new duvet, which I have been wanting for her since we rearranged all the bedroom furniture in our house A YEAR AGO, but the one I coveted for years before that has been discontinued, and anyway I never could find one that I liked AND she liked, and then this happened at Ikea, and now she has a very Anneliese bed.
Here is a thing I absolutely did not need but absolutely wanted, and I didn't buy it, but I'm pretty sure I might. It's a neon yellow stool! I mean, I need that, right? Someone talk me into it. Where should I put it?
9.) I have a new-ish phone case, and I love it. This is called a Loopy Case. It is just a case, with a loop in the back, which you can adjust to fit whatever finger you want. It is so simple and SO GENIUS.
It helps me hold my phone much steadier (I was a two-hand typer on my bigger android, and the smaller iphone is still an adjustment - slightly too small for two hands, but slightly too big for one -- and this makes it totally doable). It also means I never drop my phone on my face in bed anymore YES THAT IS A REAL THING. It also means I can knuckle it on the back of my hand and also carry a kid/purse/car seat, which keeps me from sticking my phone in my pocket instead, and that's always a good thing.
PS with the loop on the back you can stand it up for such purposes as alarm clocking. Or facetime dates. Or everyone trying to watch a video at the same time.
Anyway I love it, and I get asked about it all the time, so I am blogging about it. (My first one cracked, and I emailed them and they sent a new one -- with the loop holes now slightly offset, in their updated version, which I think will prevent that stress fracture from happening again -- and anyway with the recplacement they sent me an EXTRA. It's black, and I have a pink and a purple and a gray loop for it, so if you have a 5c and you want it, tell me and it's yours.)
10.) This post barely mentions Charlotte, but she's still the best Booler ever, so here, enjoy a delightful picture Mark took of her swinging out back.
Yes, she is wearing a sundress and some shorts and a tutu. Why, what do YOU wear to go swinging?
