Countdown to the move - Day 12

Today was Day 12, Sunday.

Why are Sunday mornings so exhausting?! We went to church (noteworthy: Maddie moved up a room and is now in the Snails class where everyone crawls and eats cheerios! Adorable. Embarrassing: I was looking back at Ellie as we walked through the hallway because she was lolly-gagging and I ran smack into someone. Although I knew him, aren't those moments always just mortifying? Then I walked out of church without my purse. I was not feeling like I had my act together this morning!). We came home, ate lunch quickly, and put the girls to bed. We tried unsuccessfully to nap Robbie because let's face it, Rob and I were hoping to get a nap in as well.

Rob scored huge points by letting me crawl back into bed while he kept half an eye on Robbie. I slept for 2 hours and it was glorious. Meanwhile, we did not realize that while Rob rested his eyes on the couch, a certain 3 year old snuck away to scavenge the kitchen. Only later in the day (including just now at 10pm!) did we discover what Robbie had gotten into... the sugar bowl (floor was covered with sugar and I could see finger poke marks in the dish), as well as my dessert cereal Reese's Puffs (laying sideways and open on the living room couch) among other things. Apparently Robbie inherited my sweet tooth.

After my nap the girls were up and the kids were basically mine since the Giants were on today! I tried to keep the kids occupied while I also made lasagna for dinner. I've been a little anxious to get back into my kitchen so I made it a big night and baked a chocolate cake, too. Deprive a cook of her kitchen for a week and culinary therapy will be in order. Carry out holds very little appeal to us anymore. I'm sad to begin packing up my kitchen this week! I may start to dream about the first meals I cook in the new house. But enough about that.

The face plates we got the kids for Christmas have been a lot of fun to use. I called tonight's dinner "Afro Lasagna" (with cucumber earrings and a cucumber beard/mustache). Also notable, Robbie discovered tonight that he loves garlic bread and asked to have it tomorrow morning for breakfast.

I gave Maddie a sippy cup of water and some puffs as I cooked and she kept me company, sweet thing.

I love this little scene...

I gave Maddie her baby food and milk bottle as I ate with one hand. Lately she's been messing with her bottle while we try to feed her - and won't finish her milk, ever! I don't know if she's tired of it or likes her food better or what the deal is. Tonight she kept squeezing the nipple as the bottle was tilted towards her face and this happened...

Too cute. It surprised her.

Robbie wanted to make faces in my camera phone so we goofed off while the girls finished eating.

Never one to miss out on an opportunity to goof off...

He loves his baby sister and was trying to help her figure out how to use her sippy. Something was hilarious!

I cannot believe how big Maddie is getting. I feel like I was just taking pictures of her all naked and tiny as a newborn. We snapped a picture just the two of us before bath time.

I let all 3 kids start off in the bath together. I usually have to keep 2 hands on Maddie as she frequently loses her balance between her rowdy siblings in the water. But something has shifted without my notice, and tonight she needed zero assistance from me!

While I was significantly bummed out by her independence (why do babies have to grow up!?), I was happy to snap way too many bath time pictures.

The Bath Sessions...

And then Ellie refused to let me wash Maddie, insisting that she could do it by herself (a theme lately...)

We wrapped slippery wet kids in warm towels and dressed them in fresh pj's. Once Maddie was tucked into her crib, the older two nested between Rob and I in our bed with sippys of milk for one episode of Olivia. This is the kids' favorite end-of-day ritual. Robbie always starts out by Rob, with Ellie by my side, and then halfway through Robbie asks to switch places with Ellie so that he and I can snuggle too. They both went to bed without a fuss, even though I thought Ellie would not be tired because of her midday nap and let her take a book to bed. She was out in record time! Lesson learned.

Rob and I watched the Golden Globes and then he tucked in just as I was starting to get this post together. There is something wonderful about looking back over images from the day before going to sleep, remembering the sweet things the kids did or said, seeing their adorable faces in all of these pictures that I know I'll be glad I took in the years to come (even though it always seems like overkill now). It has helped me appreciate what I have, WHO I have, much more than simply thinking about how tired I am at the end of the day or what I need to accomplish tomorrow. Just enjoying each day for what it brings, and not getting too far ahead of myself, is a good practice.

That being said, I packed zero boxes today. At some point this needs to change. If I keep saying things like this at the end of every post, I'll actually start to pack again, right?