Pea Pod Jansen

Today I had about two hours at the house with just me and Jansen.  After I fed him at 10am, I decided I would have some fun with him and do a little photo shoot.  After Penn was born a friend gave us an adorable hand-knit pea pod and matching hat and I did a similar photo shoot with Penn (except about a week earlier in his life and he slept through the whole thing).  Jansen was totally wakeful and wide-eyed for his photo shoot.  Enjoy the adorable pictures!  And click on the link above if you want to compare to Penn Rye...I think they definitely look like brothers!

 

 

A few nuzzle shots with the photographer/mommy.  Couldn't resist curling up next to this sweet pea pod!

Duplo Lego Challenege

We've had so many days hanging out at the house, I figured I would do a little research on a fun activity for Tavin (he's the one I feel badly for that he's stuck with me and the little guys so often).  Since I have plenty of time to be multi-tasking on my phone or iPad whilst I nurse Jansen in the wee hours of the morning, I was able to collect quite a few Duplo Lego Challenge ideas out on Pinterest.  Tav loved the idea and we had a blast building these "challenges" for about an hour before lunch today.  Check out what Tavin made...

A Lighthouse.

A Tower Crane.

An Airport Luggage Carrier Truck.

An Oil Tanker.

A Cargo Ship.

Penn Rye hung out with us and built creative things alongside of our "challenge" projects.  He saw that I was taking pictures of Tavin's finished products, so he presented this one to me and said, "and me."  Sure, sweet Penn Rye, I can happily take a picture of you too.

Duplo Lego Challenges will be a new regular activity for us on these winter days stuck at home on our own.  Jansen just chills and Tav, Penn and I have a lot of fun.  Thank goodness for Pinterest and all those moms out there that have time to share these ideas online!!

"We Got This"

As I mentioned in my last post, my mom left on Monday afternoon.  That means that for the last two days it has been an experiment in what life will really look like for us now as a family of 6.  Our motto has been..."we got this."  In a way, it's a fun challenge to take this all on without help (and in another way completely terrifying).  Doug and I are trying to approach it with a "can do" attitude as we feel out the new syncopation of all these boys' needs and you know, laughing a lot to keep it light when our best attempts end in a cacophony of bedlam from the boys.  Here are a few highlights from the past few days...

On Tuesday, there was yet another school delay due to frigid temps.  That meant Koen was home until 10am.  At first this made me nervous, but he was in great spirits and we had a great morning...me and my 4 boys (crazy!).  Koen had the fun idea of baking cookies and since Jansen cooperated and took a great morning nap, we pulled it off.  Here's my baking buddy.

Tavin and Penn had fun "baking" with macaroni at the island.

That was our big morning activity.  A little before 10am, I had to take Koen out to the bus stop.  Thankfully his bus came on time and I was back inside to feed Jansen on time.  Phew!  We did it!  The rest of the day was pretty straightforward since it was the low key little guys.  Koen got home from school and was in great spirits again which was a huge blessing because I was on duty all night long with Doug out at a meeting.  Yep, that's right...I got all 3 kiddos to bed on my own!!  The Lord was so gracious to have this first day of me on duty with all 4 boys on my own go so smoothly...a real confidence booster!  

Today was the first regular day of school for Koen and Tavin both in about a week.  So, this morning seemed like a breeze.  Penn had speech therapy here from 9-10am and then at 11am I entertained a two mommy friends that wanted to stop by and see us (i.e. meet Jansen of course!).  Speaking of Jansen, I have a few sweet pictures of him from the past few days to share.  He's getting chunkier by the day and cuter by the minute. =)  This first one is a post-feeding satisfied smile.  Melts me!

Super wakeful and laying on my chest looking up into my face.  I can't get enough of his sweet face!

Full, satisfied, well-rested and you know, just thinking about the day ahead this morning.

Ok, so anyways, back to the rest of today.  Tav had the bright idea to go in the backyard with Penn to play after he returned from preschool.  Sure, why not?  It was "balmy" in comparison to a few days ago.  They had a blast.  I couldn't get a good picture of Tav, but check out my puffy Penn Rye.  

All that snow fun tired Penn out and he took a great nap.  Tav had a good, restful afternoon and Jansen took a pretty good nap too.  Koen again came home in a good mood and then I was pleasantly surprised that Doug was able to be home a little before 5pm.  Yay!  Not to mention we had the blessing of receiving yet another meal from a friend, so dinner prep was a cinch!  Praise the Lord for an amazing community keeping this load a little lighter these first few weeks!  The rest of the evening went pretty smoothly with some playtime, dinner and then bedtimes.  So, two days down on our own.  Yeah, baby, "we got this."  Ha!  Stay tuned for some overwhelmed, exhausted post in the future, but for now I'm thanking the Lord for a good start!!

Thank You, Gramma!

On Monday afternoon, my mom headed back home to NH.  Here's a final picture of Gramma with Jansen before she headed out to the airport, he didn't really cooperate with the picture-taking, but you can tell he's snuggly and comfy with his Gramma!

So, Mom, thank you.  Ok, tearing up as I type this.  Thank you for making each of these parental transitions that much easier with your hard-working, hands-on, helpful and loving presence in our home.  You've been here serving us each time we've brought a new child home and it's always made a world of difference as we learn how to change and adapt to our new family dynamic.  Specifically with this change from a family of 5 to 6, it was so helfpul to have you here giving Penn Rye lots of attention so that he didn't even notice that more of my time was taken up by Jansen these early days of Jansen's life.  Penn enjoyed his Gramma so much that he named her, "this mom."  Pretty special and I'm not surprised.  I love my mom and think she's the best, it's no wonder he felt like she was another mom available to him.  Gramma had lots of quality time with Koen and Tavin too.  But helpful childcare was not the only way she helped.  The whole 2 and 1/2 weeks she was here I never did laundry.  She did much of the housework too.  What an amazing gift that I could then focus on my new role as a mom of 4 boys, getting to know Jansen and his needs and of course, trying to stay on top of sleep!  Thank you, Mommy.  I'm so thankful too that I've been able to share these precious newborn weeks with you for each of our boys.  I can't say it enough...thank you, thank you, thank you.  I love you and miss you being here already.

5 Years of Blogging

Today, February 23rd, is the 5th anniversary of The Melder Family Blog!  Now, my blog is very low key.  If you are out in the blogosphere, you know what a real, serious blog looks like.  Mine is definitely not one of those.  But it has been an undertaking, a commitment and a learning experience.  I thought it would be fun to make some lists (you know me, I love lists!) and reflect on these last five years of blogging.

A Few Things that Have Changed in the Last 5 Years:
1. When I started the blog, we had two kids.

Now we have four!

2. In 2010, I was a stay-at-home mom and also still worked part-time for a marketing research company.  In 2015, I'm happily focusing just on being a stay-at-home mom for now.

3. In the past 5 years, I've learned a lot about motherhood (although I have tons more to learn in the coming years I'm sure).  Probably one of the biggest lessons I've learned is that perfectionism and motherhood do not go hand in hand.  Being a mom is exhausting (and exhilarating) enough on its own without me pushing myself to be perfect (I'm not talking about sanctification here, I'm talking about people-pleasing, measuring-up perfection).  Instead, daily I'm challenged to give myself grace, learn from my mistakes, ask forgiveness and look forward to a fresh start tomorrow.  It's going to be a lifelong journey letting go of this natural characteristic, but I've definitely been forced by this role as a mom to accept my imperfection and not waste my life being upset by it.

What I've learned from Blogging for 5 Years:
1. I had no idea I liked to write!  Ok, so again, my blog is very chill.  But every now and then I enjoy the opportunity to write creatively, throw in some humor or delve into my deepest thoughts and type it out.  It's become a therapeutic, creative outlet for me that I had no idea would bring me such relief from sharing our times of joy to those of frustration and fear.  

2. We have such a wonderful network of loving, caring, interested friends and family the world over that I absolutely love keeping up to date with this blog.  Sure, sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed when I get behind on sharing our notable ups and downs, but for the most part, it brings me great joy to stay in touch with so many and share these glimpses (posts) of our lives with all of you.  


Well, anyways, this post may not be that interesting to you, but to me it's a celebration that I've been able to keep up with this journaling about our lives these past 5 years.  Thanks for joining me on this journey (which I do plan to continue).  I'm so thankful for all your support, feedback and love for the Melder Family.

Jansen's First Bath

Yep, that's right.  As of yesterday morning, I hadn't bathed my newborn yet.  Here's my reasoning...it's been frigid here!!  Our home is over 100 years old and doesn't exactly do an awesome job retaining the heat we pump it full of, so I figured we would put it off until the temps at least got above freezing.  Well, on Saturday the temps were in the 30's, so it was time to clean this baby!  It was just a good sponge bath and I was nervous he would hate it, but I had a heater in the bathroom and made the sudsy water nice and warm and turns out, he really seemed to like it!  Here are the pictures I got of the cozy, clean baby after the scrub down.  Some of the pictures are a little fuzzy and dark because using the flash kept making him close his eyes.  But you still get the idea.  He's even cuter clean I think. =)

Profile shot (look at the fuzzy (no longer greasy!) hair).

Exhausted and snuggling on Mommy's shoulder.

He totally perked up when I held the camera up over his head when I had him on my shoulder and he was just staring at the camera.  Perfect opportunity!

Back on the changing table for a rub down and final dry-off (and a bunch of pictures of course).

He's thinking about smiling!

Pucker up for a kiss?!

And there you have it.  Jansen is clean, apparently enjoys a warm sponge bath and survived another photo session by Mommy.  Can you get enough of this sweet face?  I can't. =)

Cold Days, Cancelled Days and More Cancelled Days

Oh my goodness, this winter is very frustrating!!  I need a routine, I need predictability, especially right now as I try to wrap my head around how having four kids is all going to shake out in the day to day, but no oh no, that's not happening.  This frigid weather and snow are keeping me on my toes with getting Koen and Tavin's school delayed or cancelled what feels like practically every other day or more!  Anyways, here's a review of the end of our week trying to make the most of the unexpected time with the boys home from school.

First of all, on Tuesday I got a few cute pics I haven't shared yet.  Here's a tired Mommy with her tired cutie.

Later that morning Jansen had a big blowout and ruined his outfit, so Gramma wrapped him in a blanket while I grabbed an outfit.  He was so calm and awake all snuggled up.  So precious!

On Wednesday, we actually did have a pretty normal day since Koen had school and Tav went to preschool and Penn had his in-home speech therapy session (first time since Jansen was born).  Penn enjoys lots of playtime with Gramma these days when I'm busy with Jansen and he wouldn't have it any other way.  Here he is posing for Gramma..."so big!"

Later in the morning, I gave Penn a haircut.  Note how long it is above...then check out this "after" shot below.  Handsome little fella!

On Thursday, Koen was home from school.  Thankfully, Doug was able to change his schedule around and be home most of the morning.  Koen had a great idea to have a big Lincoln Log building session.  Doug loved the idea (he's a little bit serious about the Lincoln Logs).  

Here's the monstrous finished product.  Koen and Tav had fun using their Lego City Police vehicles and pretending it was a big police station (complete with a jail of course).

Gramma had some reading time with Penn Rye later that morning while Koen and Tavin went outside briefly to shovel (single digit temps, so had to really limit the outdoor time even though they would've benefited more from hours of fresh air rather than just minutes!).  Look how snuggly Penn is with his Gramma!

Here's Penn watching the big bros get the shoveling done (it's awesome to see how handy all these sons come in when there's some hard work to be done!).

In the afternoon on Thursday, I had a few things up my sleeve to keep the boys busy.  Do you remember that lovely Mother's Blessing my girlfriends threw for me earlier in January?  Well, they had the foresight to know that I would need some special things on hand to keep the big boys busy during the winter months after baby was born.  And boy did I need some inspiration this frigid afternoon with the boys running a combination of either driving each other (and me) crazy or being partners in crime getting each other so wound up and silly.  It was time to dive into some of these creative gifts!!  So, we had a lot of fun doing our first ever KiwiCrate!  Deborah got us a 3 month subscription and I gotta say, after just doing our first box of fun, I'm definitely loving it.  The box of crafts were winter themed.  There were two main crafts, but lots of other little things with tons of ideas for other crafts/experiments/activities with simple around-the-house stuff too.  We stuck to the two main crafts, but believe me, we will be pulling out the other ideas someday soon!  First we made a snowball toss.  Here are the boys working on the snowman assembly.

Then for the toss...  They loved this activity.  It kept them busy for awhile too (until you know, it got crazy silly again!).  I was happy they had something so hands-on to get a little indoor physical activity.

Next we worked on the luminary activity.  We had to leave the first part to dry and returned to the craft after Penn was up from his nap.  Penn found the "Steve the Kiwi" stuffed animal that comes in the first box delivered by KiwiCrate.  Penn and Steve are buds.

The luminary project was a big hit as well.  The boys were able to do much of it on their own and both chose different types of scenes to make on their lanterns with the stickers provided by KiwiCrate.

Here's Koen's finished product...a wintry night scene.

And Tav's...a night in the Arctic.

That about got us through til dinnertime on Thursday and then it's a whirlwind through to bedtime (that thankfully Doug was home for it all to help).

On Friday, the boys again had school cancelled.  Thankfully we had some out-of-the-house errands and appointments that helped to break up the day and get the boys out of our house for awhile.  Even Penn got to venture out to Miss Christal's for speech therapy (again, the first time since Jansen was born).  We made it through yet another unexpected day of the boys being around and all of us out of our planned routine.  The hardest part really is that Tav and Koen have just had waaaaaay too much indoor time together.  Thankfully the weekend promises to have some opportunities for each of them to get out to some activities apart from each other so hopefully that will help give them the space and breathing room they need to settle down here at home (I sure hope so!!).

Here's hoping that next week we get a normal week of school (of course Koen has Friday off for parent-teacher conferences...unbelievable!) and we can find our family rhythm!