Mara and Lilly

Mara (5 years 3 months) has been friends with Lilly since they were both 20 months old. Soon they will start Kindergarten! I have a knitting group (I hardly knit but I enjoy all the women and they welcome me inspite of my limited, and not improving, knitting skills). On Tuesday we met down in Polson at a Lodge where one of my friends works in the summertime. It was a special day for Mara and Lilly. Sonna went to Lisa's that day to reconnect with her daycare friends. I didn't have Mara's swimsuit but Lilly said she could share her's with Mara. So Lilly wore the top piece with her underwear on bottom and Mara wore Lilly's bottom piece with a life jacket on top. Pretty good problem solving, huh? You can tell they had a lot of fun in the water!

35 1/2 weeks pregnant

The half weeks start to count at this point. My sister posted a pic of her beautiful self at 7 months pregnant and I thought it was time to do the same. Last week my midwife estimated that our baby is over 4 1/2 lbs. already and the ultrasound tech estimated 5 1/2 lbs. So, we've got a baby who is doing some good growing! The girls were 7 lbs. 11 oz. and 7 lbs. 12 oz. Nice, healthy baby sizes. We'll see what this baby girl does!

Social Butterflies

Have I mentioned that Sonna and Mara (Mara in particular) have insatiable appetites for socialization and play dates? Here they are with preschool friends Dicey and Libby. They played in their tent, play kitchen, played Sequence, played with beads, rode bikes/scooters up and down the street, swam in the kitty pool, ran through the sprinkler, searched for special rocks in the rock pile, received newly sharped pencils from the neighbor girl, made a dramatic deal about the Daddy Longlegs on the back porch, ate mac n cheese and apples for lunch, had Popsicles, built a fort between the couches, played Hide and Go Seek, danced, and drew with sidewalk chalk. This all happened within a two hour play date. I'm tired out.

The Neighbor Girls on Klondyke Loop

Blair and Baylee came over to play this afternoon. The girls made Mud Soup together. Can you see it in the wagon? One of the cooks at camp was moving and really wanted us to come dig up some of his Poppies. We did, but I wasn't into the idea of planting them (we are renting our house) so they sat in a big box in their dirt since Friday night. Well, the girls put them to good use. They cut up the Poppies and leaves and threw chunks of the dirt in the wagon and added water. Yum! Then they had a picnic lunch on the driveway with their Poppy Mud Soup.

Friday evening drive to Lakeside to get fresh cherries, pizza for supper and to rescue a broken down camp van.

Sunflowers, Ponytails, and Ramona

It's been a good week. The first of Mara's sunflowers that she planted from seed bloomed this morning. So exciting and rewarding to observe the growth over the past two months. I distinctly remember being on the phone with my mom a few weeks ago when I noticed they were nearly dead from lack of water. When I called Mara to come water her sunflowers, she refused and said she didn't want to. I briefly debated whether or not to let her experience the natural consequence and have them die. But I couldn't do it. It was the only thing we were growing this year and I needed to see it bloom!

Mara also learned how to do her own ponytail this week! Here she made it into a little bun and she was so proud. One morning she and Sonna spent over an hour with their Pretty Ponies and all their own hair accessories creating hair dos. From that she evidently learned how to twist a ponytail holder around her hair. Nice!

Jedd read two of Beverly Clearly's Ramona books to the girls at bedtime over the past two months. Beezus and Ramona and Ramona the Pest. We all enjoyed the books and B. Cleary's amazingly accurate portrayal of a spirited 5 year old. So we were so excited when we learned the movie was coming out this summer. The four of us went to our very first Family Movie Outing last weekend and it was a success! Sonna was able to sit through the whole hour and 44 minute movie. She's never been to a movie before and our only other experience at the movies with the girls was when Jedd took Mara and she said it was too loud and asked to leave, which they did. The movie was great! It captured Ramona's imagination, her thought processes, and her determined self. So when Mara came out during her quiet time in the outfit pictured above and I said, "You look like Ramona", it was as if there could be no higher compliment to our Mara Ida Jane Larson. She beamed and then came out of her room repeatedly with new creations on. (I recognize that I reinforced coming out of her room during quiet time, something I should not do, but oh, she was so darn cute!)

I also signed up the girls for the Sibling class at the birth center/hospital where our baby will be born. When I made the call to register them, Mara freaked out and said, "I'm not going!". I have no idea why she responded that way. She wouldn't talk about it in spite of my attempts to get her to tell me what she was feeling. I told her she was welcome to stay home with Dad and I would take Sonna since she's never been a big sister before and she might enjoy the class, to which Sonna replied, "I'm not going either!". At that point, I got the giggles. Stay tuned . . . the class is next week.

The Full Picture

Jedd took this picture of me last week. I wonder if it shows equal parts contentment and "I need a nap and/or shower". :)

I think most of us tend to blog about the happiest times, the joyful celebrations, the picture-perfect days. I know I feel more motivated to document such days and events. But I've also been thinking about the picture I've painted of our lives on my blog and I think I would do myself, as well as others, perhaps most of all my girls if they choose to be moms one day, a favor if I shared a few of the frustrations or challenges that are also part of our daily lives. Maybe I'm better at sharing the ins and outs than I think but I recognize that yesterday's post looks idyllic, and truthfully, it was one of those days! But here is a little more of the fullness of our lives:

Although we live in a gorgeous place with mountains, lakes, wildlife, big sky, etc. we are far from our loved ones. We miss our MN community and I miss my mom especially. Perhaps as we anticipate having a third child, I feel the pull even more. I know my parents would love to help us out and the thought of dropping off the girls for a night sounds dreamy. In addition, the camp season is in full swing during the most beautiful months here in Montana which means Jedd works six long days a week which greatly limits our ability to get out to explore the beauty more.

I have a lippy five year old who shares our household. We are working on this.

Speaking of house, our house is not our own. We are renting and would love to have our own home. Someday. Right now, it is a mess and very disorganized and makes me a little crazy at times. I emailed my Grandma on the 4th of July and said that I was glad to be invited to a friend's house to celebrate the 4th because my house was a mess. She replied, "O, there is so much difference between mess and dirt. Don't worry about the mess - soon the little mess makers are grown and gone". I wanted to reply, "Oh, Grandma, my house is messy and dirty". Still, her kind words helped. I am counting on a long, extended 'nesting' period with this pregnancy so I can get things into shape around here. We'll see . . .

I think I'm on cold/cough #6 of this pregnancy and each one seems to last 2-4 weeks. My immune system must just be wiped out with this pregnancy. I've had a nasty case of bronchitis, the stomach flu, major bladder issues and several yeast infections over the past 7 months.

I think Jedd and I have a healthy dose of anxiety about adding another member to our family and the responsibility we share.

We also share a fair amount of financial stress after my job ended in May.

My dear father-in-law has been slipping away for ten years from Alzheimer's. This is the saddest reality of our lives. He would have been a spectacular Grandpa. Even so, the girls love him so much.

Having said all this, we have a million things to be thankful for and we ask for God's help with all the rest.

A Family Day

Loon Lake

32 weeks pregnant. Thanks, Sara, for sending me a bikini to wear! I have a modest black suit I wear when swimming at camp but I wanted a two piece for when we are not at camp. My belly had not seen the bare light of day so I lathered up the sunscreen.

My girls. They are very connected to this growing baby inside!

My wonderful husband.

Mara ordered strawberry ice cream and Sonna ordered mint chocolate chip. (:

We had a great summer day together. The girls woke us up at 7:30 and Sonna declared, "Today we get to go to a lake to play but not the lake at camp because Daddy has the day off and he works at camp". Smart girl! We headed out to Loon Lake just past Bigfork. It was a much smaller lake than Flathead Lake so it was a little warmer. We packed a picnic, swam, rested on the dock, enjoyed the dragon flies and minnows, and then headed into Bigfork for ice cream.