This week is late and missing photos, but a last minute trip to Ohio for a funeral will do that. The kids really enjoyed seeing their cousins for the first time in a long time and it was great to meet my THREE new baby nephews, but the drive there and the drive back (in the snowstorm) was rough on everyone. Especially poor E, who drove for 12.5 hours straight since I was too nauseous to drive in the morning and too freaked out by the weather to drive in the afternoon. But I am super glad the Navy granted him emergency leave so we could all say goodbye to his Grandma Davis in person.

Sunday:

New baby props for a newborn shoot

Oh hello crazy awesome abandoned mill I really really want to take pictures of for real

I call this: Pregnancy Cravings

Monday:

Helping me clean her room

Old dog, 3 year old girl

Both kids passed out at 5 pm. No idea what happened.

Tuesday:

Not rain nor snow nor sleet shall keep the gingers from waiting for the bus outside

Thanks to a couple friends and a few (too many) trips to Wendy’s we have an awesome collection of these now. Evan made an Air Force.

Bedtime for gingers

Wednesday:

Nor fog. I forgot fog before.

Presents for myself, thanks to a MinuteClinic Christmas card. Love them. (That mascara is amazing, thanks to Laura for the suggestion.)

Second swim lesson: GOOGLES

Thursday:

V. excited for school

Show off.

Friday:

Endless driving.

Apple face

Saturday:

Enjoying some “cold chocolate” after sledding

Hand & Foot

The Marble Game. We were trying to fit as much Midwest into our visit a possible.

I can’t believe it’s already almost Wednesday. We’re getting hammered with snow right now and I doubt anyone is going to school tomorrow. I’m supposed to have an OB appointment and the kids are supposed to have swimming but that’s all sort of questionable too. Not that I mind a day off to recover from being out of town, although I doubt anything useful like unpacking or cleaning will get done. Probably just napping.

Late. As of this morning my productivity/desire to write stuff on the internet seems to be back (you know it is when you actually consider commenting on a post on Jezebel) so hopefully my blog won’t totally fade away.

Sunday:

Important blizzard food: hot dogs and eggs.

I still think playing football in the snow/freezing cold is crazy

That’s how Sundays make me feel too

Monday:

Sheet washing day is also bed bouncing day

Santa baby

They ask me to take this picture during every bath

Tuesday:

In my first few weekly iPhone pics, Evan could only reach the bottom row. (And Caroline was an inside baby)

The fox is unimpressed with the rays

Technically that was Wednesday, but it didn’t feel any different. Unimpressive, 2014.

Wednesday:

These people are playing HOCKEY outside in the snow. EVEN CRAZIER THAN FOOTBALL.

Princess/Engineer Tiana

More baby photos. I love baby photos.

Thursday:

Earning his keep

Mark it in the baby book: First time I showed up at preschool pick up in ACTUAL pajamas.

(Fake) sleeping with the (fake) cat whiskers

Friday:

BFFs

Ancient iPod is ancient

She’s like 80% legs

Saturday:

Baby toys are fun when they belong to other people

Ignoring the donut holes, eating all the strawberries

We had warm weather today before the POLAR VORTEX hits us tomorrow, so we went outside and ran as many errands as possible. Tomorrow I’m hoping to put all our hot chocolate, throw blankets  and Disney movies to good use (although so far the kids still have regular school).

I stopped doing Caroline’s monthly updates because it seemed so unnecessary – she had reached all her milestones and it was sort of boring (and braggy) to repeat over and over that my toddler was a genius. But then suddenly I realized it was November and we were only a few weeks away from 36 months old and I was going NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE.

But it’s definitely true. She may actually have been 3 for the last 6 months and I was just counting wrong. It seemed ridiculous to call her 2 when she never uses her a stroller, goes to a real preschool class, has no fear of new things or people, dresses herself, can order her own food at restaurants, sits through a full-length movie in a theater, and can sled down big giant hills without freaking out even a little bit.

(FTR, there’s a chain link fence at the bottom of that hill so they couldn’t go out into the road. It’s a perfect sledding hill.)

I think she acts so grown up because I treat her like she’s grown up. I expect the same things from her that I expect from her 4 1/2 year old brother, which might not always been fair for her but she handles incredibly well. It also makes my life easier, since they’re able to play together, share together and help take care of each other (and me – let’s be honest, being able to fetch things for you is a major reason to have kids). She is so kind and helpful and sweet and full of cuddles I sort of dread the 3’s. And the 4’s. And everything between 10 and 21. Right now when she gets super mad at me she mostly cries and says “I need a huuuuuuuuuuug!” I imagine that won’t last forever, so I’m trying to appreciate it now, even when it happens 14 times a day.

She had a dentist appointment and her flu mist spray on the same day last week and handled both without any crying or running away or fighting. She understands the concept of “Do this now and then it’s over and we can go home and have a cuddle”, although stickers or ice cream make very effective bribes. Sometimes there is a little bedtime stalling – especially if she thinks we’re having fun without her – but sleeps through the night 99% of the time. She finally grew a little bit (I’ll get stats at her check-up in January), but she’s wearing actual 3T sizes in shirts and 2T in pants, although yesterday she wore a pair of 18 month snow pants.

Caroline loves princesses and pink and sparkly things. She also loves running and screaming and playing in the dirt and jumping in muddy puddles and throwing snowballs. Right now she has absolutely no sense of girl things vs boy things or “acting like a lady” and the first time I hear anyone try to explain it to her I will LOUDLY tell them they are wrong. I hope she makes all her own decisions about her likes and dislikes forever, be it wearing gowns to the grocery store or running around the house in boots, underpants and a pirate hat.

Her likes include talking, animals, repeating everything I’ve ever said, pink, cookies, helping, hugs, her brother, Daddy, the iPad, princesses, dress up, snow, sledding, drawing, eating, talking some more, Christmas, sleeping, balloons, school, jumping, running, even more talking, books, singing songs she made up, What Does The Fox Say?, quesadillas, the aquarium, talking to people she doesn’t know at the store, Santa, movies, her stuffed ducky, her stuffed doggy, and her stuffed kitty.

Dislikes include being really tired, being really hungry, when Mommy says no, when Daddy goes to work, wearing the appropriate amount of clothing for winter in Connecticut, and “when Blushes [our cat] gets angwy and goes ‘HAAAAAACH'”.

I did a birthday questionnaire for Evan in writing, but Caroline is better at answering questions (although sort of hard to understand on video) so I broke out the record function on my DSLR for the first time ever and asked her about her favorite things:

Happy 3rd birthday to my Christmas Girl, Caroline Noelle! You are amazing and I love you bunches and bunches forever.

We have a family tradition of getting our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. It was something my family did, it was something E’s family did, and it’s something we’ve done throughout our marriage. This year Thanksgiving was late, and also fell in the middle of shift work for E, so he didn’t get the day off. Or the day after. I was a little bummed, but we planned to just get the tree in a few days when E could get a few hours off of work.

That never happened. He literally hasn’t had any time off – besides a few hours to sleep most (not even all) nights – since mid-November. If it was at any other job besides the military, his hours would probably be illegal. I know I’ve complained about how much he works before (probably a lot) but I’ve reached a point where I’m not sure how I’M going to get through it.

Right now the only thing I’m getting by on is making sure the kids are still enjoying Christmas. They are so excited about every single part of the holidays that it’s pretty easy for me to let myself get wrapped up in it too, although the fact that we’re missing 1/4th of our family is always in the back of my mind. My mom sent the kids an advent calendar and GOD FORBID I don’t remember to get it down so they can open the day’s door first thing in the morning. And amazingly, they’re keeping track of whose turn it is and remember better than I do. It’s teaching them sharing! And fairness! And that if you touch something covered in glitter it will stick on your body basically forever! Those are all very important lessons.

My biggest accomplishment so far is that I took both kids to the tree farm on a weekend (SO CROWDED) and we chopped down a tree. I CUT IT DOWN MY OWN SELF. WITH A SAW. I did a hack job and a nice guy with his own family came over and steadied it while I was sawing so it didn’t fall over and crush me, but besides that I did it alone. Luckily the farm picks up the cut trees and carts them down to the station where they shake them and wrap them up for you, but then I hauled it to the car, into the car (God bless minivans) and home into the house. I totally failed at getting it into the stand but E got it set up the next morning and now we have a fully decorated tree. We had to rearrange because my little desk/office corner went in the former Christmas tree spot, but now we can sit on our new little couch, enjoy the fire and look at the tree at the same time. Tomorrow the kids get to start opening their Christmas books (I was going to do one for each day of December but books are really expensive, yo) and we can sit on that new couch by the tree and I can read to them about the Christmas story while I sob quietly because magic and family and loneliness and children and Jesus and FEELINGS. It’s raising my level of holiday spirit from Grinch to Slightly Christmasy, which is a definite improvement.

I haven’t had much time for my own photos lately, which makes me kind of sad. Partly because once something is part of your job it loses a LITTLE bit of the fun and partly because it’s hard to juggle the kids in public and take photos. It’s pretty easy to lose one kid while you’re taking pictures of the other one, and I’m generally only seconds away from losing a kid even WITHOUT a camera in my face. It’s amazing I’ve kept them alive this long, honestly. But this might be the first Christmas they remember when they look back as adults and I want to make sure I have at least some pictures to show them, so here are a few.

Evan’s first choice, but I told him it was too short.

Caroline’s first choice, also on the small side.

Final selection

After we killed it.

Watching them wrap it with the cool wrapping machine

The farm had all our favorite food trucks, including the delicious kettle corn people from the farmer’s market.

Decorating

The princess places the angel

Yes, I know it’s out of focus

Fun with bokeh cut-outs

LIFE UPDATE: My husband is still on shift work. That is 14 hour days, 7 days a week, which means I am also working 7 days a week, close to 18 hours a day. I fell behind on the housework and laundry a week before Thanksgiving and have never caught up, even when I ignore my children, neglect my blog, put off editing photos, stick in my headphones and tackle a room for 2 hours straight. And no matter how many times I clean up the main living space the children destroy it again within minutes. If I didn’t believe in my heart that I would trip over a RescueBot, fall into the TV and bleed to death on the floor I might just stop even TRYING to clean up.

KID UPDATE: Evan still thinks school is awesome. He hasn’t had any more bus drama and I haven’t forgotten a single half day in months. He is helpful and kind at home and still wants to snuggle on a fairly regular basis despite being so tall I sometimes don’t recognize him. Caroline refuses to wear anything besides princess dresses. She also has the most horrible whining voice in the world. It’s worse than nails on a chalkboard and she does it ALL the time, even when she’s just making up imaginary games between her dolls. She is also unbelievably adorable. Her birthday party is next weekend and her birthday itself is right after that and then my baby will be THREE.

COUCH UPDATE: STILL HAVE AN EXTRA COUCH I CANNOT EVEN GIVE AWAY. And no Christmas tree because of shift work and also because there is no where to put it because of the couch.

ICE CREAM UPDATE: Despite the fact that it is usually around 40 degrees, we’ve been hitting Mystic Drawbridge Ice Cream pretty regularly. Downtown Mystic is my favorite place for photo shoots right now, and bribing my kids with ice cream is a win-win, since it means I get some ice cream too. The peanut butter sundae is still my favorite.

PHOTO UPDATE: Here are some photos.

CONNECTICUT UPDATE: Still unbelievably scenic.