Annie's Australia

Annie was our easiest kid on this trip by far. She loves the baby backpack and rode happily in it and the stroller for miles and miles. She's easy to feed, can sleep pretty easily when she needs to and would stop crying just about anytime I picked her up.
That said, she's something of a mama's girl. Well, she loves Daddy too. But if one of us isn't holding her, life is pretty much over. Granny made it her personal mission to win her over. It took just about the whole two weeks, but it finally worked. The whole time we joked about the pair of them: Granny and Grrr-Annie.
She's one lucky baby. She's nursed in more exotic locations than many people will visit in their lives. And on airplane, she got a bassinet while we had normal seats. The bassinet hooks on the front of the bulkhead and was big enough for her to lay in quite comfortably. She slept, well, like a baby for almost the entire flight from LAX to Auckland and back. She was definitely flying first class while the rest of us were in coach.
Here are some really adorable photos of my sweet Anniecakes:

Rachelle's Australia

Taking Rachelle with us on this trip was the hardest decision we made. We knew Stellan was old enough to remember it, and since Annie is nursing, she was definitely coming. But it's basically insanity to take a two and half year old on a trip like ours. Lucky for her, I'm a softy. I knew that once she was old enough to realize she was the only one left behind, she would never forgive us. Well, at least not until she had her own two and a half year old child. So we took her.
I won't lie, it was challenging for all of us. She has a short attention span, was barely potty trained, is prone to regular tantrums and doesn't like keeping other people's schedules or agendas. Her midday naps were tough to accommodate, although they were always necessary. In the end, I don't regret it. And she's just so stinking cute, I hate being apart from her anyway.
Some things about two-year-olds are easy. She loves to dance and sing, and can be cajoled out of a bad mood almost 100% of the time with an interjection of "Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee." In fact, that song may be the soundtrack of our trip. She is small enough to pick up relatively easily and could always be strapped in the stroller in a pinch. This was a regular and very real threat to her. Also, she's always looking for a good time, so we did our best to provide one.
Her favorite part of the trip was definitely the beach. In fact, she keeps asking to go to the beach now that we're home, not realizing that the South Pacific in the summer is much more pleasant than the Gulf of Mexico in winter. She also really enjoyed the pool in our yard and would beg to swim morning, noon and night. And she loves the plush baby crocodile she got at the croc farm gift shop. She sleeps with it every night and plays with it all day. I love the way she says it - baby cah-wock-a-dile. Now that we're home, she's got a whole crocodile family with existing plush animals.
Here are some of my favorite photos of her:

Stellan's Australia

Stellan had a really great time on the trip. Once he figured out that everywhere we wanted to take him was amazing, he was a very good sport about going along. He loved seeing lots of exotic animals and couldn't get enough of the beach. He also really liked the boat ride out to the reef, but didn't enjoy snorkeling on the open sea at all. Now he talks about the trip like it's no big deal, like every 5-year-old flits across continents just to hand feed kangaroos and watch crocodiles feed.
He also managed to have fun just hanging around our house; when you've got lots of space, some fun balls and a pool at your fingertips, life's a constant party. He did well with a limited diet (they don't have applesauce, he hated Australian honey hut Cheerios and he found the yogurt selection unsatisfactory) and was very good about understanding that everything wasn't like it is at home. He was very good on airplanes and mostly pretty good at airports.
I will say he was starved for peers on the trip. Being stuck with a two-year-old as his primary companion wasn't easy and we spent lots of time talking about how great our babysitting swap would be when we got home. (He loves "Kid Night", as we call it, because 9 kids all at once is basically his idea of heaven.) He loved spending time with his grandmas, though, and misses them lots now that we're so far away.
Here are some of his best photos of the trip:

Auckland

We had overnight layovers in Auckland, New Zealand, on our way to Australia and also on the way back home. Even though we had less than 18 hours from when we left the airport until we had to be back each time, we did our best to take advantage of our time there. We wish we'd had more time there, because it was truly beautiful.

Adventures in LA

On our way to Australia, we had a one-day layover in Los Angeles each way. On the way there, we had lots of energy and were lucky enough to have Grandpa Steward and GrandMaggie drive down from Santa Barbara to spend the day with us. On the way home, we were too jetlagged to want to do much, so I have spared you photos of us looking bedraggled in a motel room.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

If you teach your kids to love museums, they're going to want to visit museums.

If your kids want to visit museums, you may want to offer them a trip to a museum in semi-distant Mobile, AL (2 hour drive) as an incentive for cleaning the house during winter break.

If they clean the house, you'll be compelled to comply with the promised reward.

If you take them to the Exploreum in Mobile, the kids will have a really great time.

If they're having fun, you'll keep them past the girls' naptimes.

If you keep them past their naptimes, the baby will definitely want to eat.

When the baby wants to eat, you'll take the older two back to the Wharf of Wonder 5-and-under exhibit area so you can nurse in peace.

While you're peacefully nursing your baby, you might notice most of the parents suddenly looking concerned and glancing around curiously.

If you look around to see what they're so nervous about, you will see a pair of naked 2-year-old buns that you definitely recognize.

When you recognize the naked backside of a very quick 2-year-old, you will have to quickly detach your tired hungry baby, yell loudly at the crowd, "She's mine! I'm on it!" and chase down the older girl, stopping on the way to pick up various items of clothing.

Once you've redressed her, you will warn her that any repeat of earlier behavior will result in the immediate termination of the museum experience.

You will quietly return to your nursing bench, ignoring the looks of the bemused parents who are undoubtedly thinking, "That lady needs to get it together."

If you choose to continue feeding your baby, two minutes later a grumpy-sounding man will mumble in your direction, "She's doing it again."

You will once again detach baby, rush back to the ball pit, grab 2-year-old and redress.

Since you're the kind of parent who keeps promises (both the "I'll take you to a museum" and "I'll take you away from the museum" kind), you'll have to pack up all three kids, buckling two in your double stroller and coaxing a justifiably disappointed 5-year-old into walking away voluntarily.

If you have to remove them all while they were enjoying themselves, your kids will be sad. Maybe even angry. One of them (the one not in a stroller) might charge at you from behind on the sidewalk as you leave the museum.

If he charges you in his angry and tired state, he may miss you and instead flail dramatically in the air.

If he flails dramatically enough, he will smack his head on a fluted cement pillar and start spurting blood at an alarming rate.

When he starts bleeding profusely in the street in a strange city a hundred miles from home, you may feel slightly overwhelmed.

You will rely on your faith in museum staff and head back inside.

When you wheel back in to the museum and up to the front desk, the museum staff will react first with pity and then with a bit of revulsion when they see your very bloody son/stroller/sweatshirt-headwrap.

They will escort you to an office and call 911.

If your child injures himself in the near proximity of a museum, the staff might be nervous that you will sue them and shower your children with attention and swag from the gift shop.

When the EMTs arrive, they will assure you that your child will indeed need stitches and that you can't all fit in an ambulance.

If you don't want to send your scared and bloody 5-year-old in the ambulance all by himself, you will instead opt to take him to the ER yourself.

You will get all 3 kids loaded into the car, thank God for GPS on your phone and head for your nearest hospital.

If you are very unlucky, the ER will be very busy. They will only have 1 seat for all 4 of you and make you wait for 2 hours before they take you to triage.

If you are silly enough to stay and wait, you will eventually make your way to a room where a nurse will look at you with pity and point out the TV.

You will vow never to say anything bad about Spongebob Squarepants as long as you live.

If you are still there 2 and half hours after you arrived at the hospital, the nurse may come back and ask, "Are you sure there's no one else that can take your other 2 children?"

When you are done envisioning her head exploding in slow motion, you will calmly reply, "No ma'am, there's no one else."

Eventually you will hold your daughters tight and face them away as you watch the nurses put 3 staples in your son's head. You will be fairly certain that lidocaine shot didn't work.

If you make it through this, you will want to reward your children with something so awesome for being so patient for the last 3 hours.

You will think about offering to take them to your home museum on Monday. Then you will offer them McDonald's for dinner instead.

Merry Christmas!

We have had a busy and very fun Christmas season. Christmas with kids is so much fun. We love watching each kid discover what she/he likes best and introducing new traditions. Here's a quick sample of some of our Christmas fun:



And finally, here's a look at what post-Christmas has been sounding like since we opened presents:
Merry Christmas From Rachelle from Krissie Cook on Vimeo.

A Moment I Never Want To Forget

This just happened right now. And I want it to happen over and over in my head every day for the rest of my life.

My sweet Rachelle came running in to show me the picture she had "colored" (meaning she poked a million holes in a piece of paper with a pen). I told her it was beautiful and scooped her up and gave her a big hug. As she hugged me back, she started growling in her silly 2-year-old voice with her silly 2-year-old smile. I said, "Are you a monster? A scary hugging monster?" She pulled away and said, "I not a monster, mama. I just a happy girl." And then she laughed and smiled and melted my heart forever.

How Could I Forget?

One last photo that is so precious it deserves its own post:

3 Kids, 3 Cute Photos

In no particular order:

Rachelle spent Stellan's last soccer practice pouring dirt on herself. That's what I call good clean fun.

 A friend gave me this cute bumblebee outfit before Annie was even born. Worth every second of the wait.

This is what happens when you let your five-year-old loose with a page of dinosaur stickers.

The Fair

We went to the fair today and was so fun! For our young kids, the fair is not about exhibits, 4-H, games or even funnel cakes. It's about rides. So we got Rachelle and Stellan wristbands and let them go on any and every ride they wanted to go on (and were allowed to go on). They were so cute; Stellan would take Rachelle by the hand and help her up the ramp and onto the ride. They would giggle and squeal with delight. And then do it all over again. I'm sorry that I'm so lousy at taking fair ride photos, but even the best professional photos couldn't do the moment justice. So you'll just have to use your imagination when you watch this slideshow.

Why Is This Baby So Happy?

Maybe it's because she cut her first two teeth last night. Or maybe it's because she's wearing a sweatshirt for the first time in her life. Don't worry, it won't last long; it'll be up to 80° by midday.

Sunset Walk

We enjoyed a lovely weekend full of General Conference, and then took a late afternoon stroll out to the bayou. The weather was perfect and the water was gorgeous, so when the kids wanted to get in, how could I stop them? (It's possible I anticipated that and brought a couple of towels in the wagon.) Anyway, Kevin, Annie and I watched the sunset and Stellan and Rachelle had a blast splashing in the water. There aren't very many perfect days in life, but sometimes you get close enough to blog it.

Best Birthday...Ever?

I'm just going to come out and say it: this was my best birthday. Ever. (Best thus far, I rush to add. I'm not sayin' it couldn't ever get better.)
First, I was inundated with singing phone calls, non-singing phone calls, emails, video emails, cake pops, candy, sweet baby hugs and kisses, and a mountain of Facebook greetings. It's pretty awesome to feel the love like that all day long.
But it gets better. When I woke up that morning, I found two envelopes carefully decorated by my cute kids. That would have been birthday gift enough. But no - inside the first envelope was a gift card to our favorite used bookstore. The second envelope had a note from Kevin saying he'd be home at noon so I could go pick out some books and then go enjoy a massage(!). He had booked me an appointment for later that afternoon.
It was heavenly. And when I came home, Kev and kids were making me dinner. It was cuter than cute. And delicious. We ate quickly and went to Stellan's soccer practice, where I enjoyed the late afternoon breeze on the sidelines while tuning and learning to play my new ukulele (double !).
Oh, but that's not all. The next evening, our dear Emily (the one that Rachelle loves more than anyone in the world, including me) threw me a birthday party. A themed birthday party. A nerd themed birthday party. It was nothing short of amazing. She had completely decorated her house; imagine family portraits replaced with the cast of "The Big Bang Theory", pithy nerd quotes and jokes, astronomy posters all over the walls, math flash cards strung up as banners, tablecloths covered in complicated equations. And did I mention it was a costume party? Because it was.
We played nerdy games and had nerdy food. We chatted and joked, we reveled in our nerdiness. However, the highlight of the night was an unanticipated group of partycrashers. About an hour in to our get-together, someone knocked. When Emily went to the door, it was a couple of younger guys with snacks in their hands asking if this was the party. Although she didn't know them, she said it was, and invited them in. It took them about half a second looking around the room at the nerd decor and the nerds in it, they looked confused. Then Emily realized that her neighbors, also younger men, have regular weekend parties and she sent them on their way. But the looks on their faces were priceless. I guess they never knew nerds could party so hearty.
So thanks to everyone and anyone who sent birthday wishes, thought birthday thoughts, nerded it up, and made my birthday the best ever. Things really do get better with age.

Stellan's First Soccer Game