in which Tommy gets used to us

Little Tommy is such a sweet, sweet baby. As his first birthday approaches, I can't help but notice all of the changes he's made in our family. It's amazing how much joy and personal growth babies give to everyone around them.  

Check out the super-concerned look Tommy has in the picture of us above. He was born with a furrowed brow!....and I swear the kid looked worried and irritated for several weeks.

...until he finally got used to us and decided that maybe we were nice after all.

Cozy may have been sad to lose her "baby status", but you would never know it from the way she treats her little brother.  They have even learned how to be annoying together! Sibling skills.

I feel so blessed to have these little ones in my life. They may be time-consuming, but every minute of it is worth it. Babies really are the ultimate luxury item.

Thanks, Honey, for helping me to fill our home all of these crazy, sweet little people.

All Mine

Wanna know how to get away with not sharing?

Put "too much spinach" in your quiche....

...and raisins in your "friendship pie".

The pie was actually very good. It was reminiscent of cinnamon rolls - the old school ones that had raisins at least.

I told my kids how sad I was that they all rejected my friendship, but they were unmoved.

As Finished As It's Getting

I know I promised to show you Cozy's Dollhouse last week....but here it is....only one week later than promised. That's pretty good, don'tcha think?

Tiffani. (The houses' name.) She came with much more gingerbread, to line the roof and the gables. I still may end up putting a little more trim here and there, but not like this. Cozy wanted the colors for her house to be just like the one's on the box, and we came pretty close with what I had stashed in the basement.

I am a tad envious of the front porch.

Now, when we drive through our neighborhood, Cozy is quick to point out all of the houses that have "those things that my house has...with the windows..." 

Gables. Actually, I think this home would fit right in on our street.

On the inside, Cozy's house needs exactly what mine needs - more square inches!

I tried to convince her that her dolls didn't need a bathroom, but she has very anti-outhouse.  So, the larger upstairs room is the bathroom and the baby and mama have to share the tiny bedroom.

I broke one of my inside window frames. Well, truth be told, I broke several, but this was the one I wasn't able to mend.

I painted a little bow doodad from A.C. Moore...and isn't it charming!

Lucky for me, Cozy doesn't care if anything is to scale, because hardly any store bought furniture fits in her tiny home. (Pretty typical of first houses, right?)

The single bed I bought for her bedroom couldn't be squeezed in.

Isn't my Maryland wall art adorable! ...and the "D" is for Dotty. Cozette named her doll Dorothy and we are going to call her Dot or Dotty. (You can meet Dotty later. She is indisposed at the moment.)

Since our purchased bed didn't fit, we made one out of an old iphone box.

It isn't perfect, if you look at the corners. I covered it in paper, where fabric might have been easier.

The feet are bulletin board pins.

Dotty and the bears don't mind it's imperfections. Cozy and I plan to make them numerous throw pillows this week.

The bathroom is waiting on the tub and toilet, which I refuse to buy without a 50% off coupon. :)

For now, I'm calling the Tiffani finished. Finished enough that I'm going to start my new dollhouse. ....just as soon as I reclaim the dining room table.

Cozy's Greenleaf Dollhouse

Quite some time ago, I saw an adorable dollhouse on the Blogosphere.  It was insanely cute.

{Childhood obsession rekindled}

I started looking at dollhouses and miniatures on Pinterest...and then on Ebay...and then on Craigslist.

After months of looking, I knew which dollhouses I wanted, but I wasn't willing to shell out big bucks to get one. {Oh that I had!}

I did find a couple of kits on Craigslist, one of which was just the size and price that I wanted.  They also had a smaller, super cheap kit I could get along with it - distraction dollhouse for Cozy (since I want total creative control with my house)!

So, Christmas break arrives and I have some time to sit around doing whatever I want while my kids do whatever they want. Plus, my Dad is visiting and happy to help with my crazy project! 

We crack open Cozy's kit first, planning and expecting to throw it together "real quick" and get on to the bigger, better house. Little did I know....

First you get to:

1. punch out all of the pieces from the stamped plywood (breaking several)

2. sand said pieces

3. seal all of those dang pieces

4. paint those stinkin pieces (in a few cases, repaint pieces...since you confused the inside and outside walls. grrr)

I was so happy when I finally got to put some walls up!

Yay for walls!...and for some feeling of progress!

After that things seemed to go a little bit faster.

...even with the normal amount of messing up and redo-ing things.

Soon after the walls, the stairs went it.

See them - minus the steps, which were being painted.

Then I had the roof to look forward to...but the porch trim had to be put up first.

SOOOOO much delayed gratification.

This is the horror that the dollpocolypse has brought to our dining room table.

Yes, we've been eating in the kitchen since Christmas. My husband is so very patient.

Sofia commented that, "Even though the floors are icy cold, it's so nice to be gathered so close together for dinner." 

Hey, if one of my teenagers likes being with her family more than personal comfort....

....we have a good chance of having family reunions one day. 

Sofia has even encouraged me to open up my next, bigger, more difficult dollhouse at the table.

(Crazy girl.) But I won't. I miss the table....for school if not for meals.

This weekend, I'll show you the finished product - full of Cozy's toys. :)

The End of Preschool :(

Cozy "graduated" from preschool shortly after little Tommy arrived.  Happily, he didn't arrive on the day of, because Cozette was traumatized enough that I missed the beginning of the ceremony.

Grandma heard her telling several people that I wasn't there because I just had a new baby. Well, I was in the car, feeding that new baby. New babies don't think preschool graduations are very important (that's one thing they have in common with my husband) 

and they can be quite tricky to feed. 

...but I made it to see Cozy's official exit from "Rockville Rompers". 

She loved it.

And she looked so adorable in her gown and cap.

Her name, with some of her friends'.

In 2013, Cozy won the most talkative award.

She must have worked harder in 2014. Most Creative.

Cozette has a boundless attention span for arts and crafts, so we weren't surprised.

James, posing with the cake.  He didn't care for preschool. Maybe his didn't have enough cake. ;)

Tommy snoozed and was generally admired .... 

...until we decided that it had been more than enough party for a newborn baby and recovering mom...and, not for first time....but certainly for the last, we pried Cozette away, kicking and screaming, from her preschool

Tommy

At the end of May, we finally got to meet the newest member of our family.

It has been so sweet.

We are all big fans of Tommy.

We love the funny faces he makes. He's just soft and precious and wonderful. 

Sofia and Annika were brave enough to be in the delivery room, so they got to hold their newest brother before everyone else. Sofia likes to scare us by saying things like, "three more years and I get to have one of my own!" I told her five more years sounded better to me. She and Annika have also been arguing about which one of them will have ten kids first. It will be interesting to see what comes of all of those plans. I'm just glad they weren't scared out of ever procreating (by witnessing childbirth). I want grandkids some day!

Anthony has always, always loved babies. However, he isn't the lullabying snuggler that the girls are.  As I think is pretty typical of men, he loves it once he can make the babies laugh and smile. Tommy starts smiling as soon as he sees his big brother coming toward him, cause he just knows what a fun party it's going to be.

Cozy was really hoping for a little sister.

Although she still thinks it would be fun to dress up a little sister, she adores Tommy.

"I didn't know how cute he would be....cause I didn't know boys could be cute...I guess

 when they're babies."

Sofia is very protective of her tiny brother. She was always concerned that I am not holding him right or being careful enough. Seriously? I'm pretty sure I have a handle on being careful with newborns.

When baby brother came home, we had an "instructional talk" with the little children about how careful you have to be with babies. Their necks are not very strong, so you must always be gentle and can never shake them. 

They obviously took it to heart. 

Cozy had nightmares about shaking the baby and having his head fall off. 

James told us that we should never get a doll that looks like the baby....and that if we do, we must be very careful with the doll, so as not to hurt Tommy. 

Funny, cause we didn't even have the "voodoo doll talk".

Before Tommy was born, James anticipated the baby being nearly as cute as our cat.

(Cozy has been granted to have this same "almost as cute as Matt the cat" cuteness status. She's cried about it. Some people are used to being considered the cutest things ever. I'd be pretty happy to be half as cute as Matt.)

In James' estimation, Tommy has now surpassed Matt in cuteness. The baby is officially the cutest.

My wonderful mother was invaluable during the new-baby-transition. Driving kids around, snuggling baby, cooking, and all of those other things you wouldn't even think to ask - she did them.

(Grandma even took the kids to the aquarium in Baltimore!)

It has been a happy, baby-snuggling time. 

Happy New Year

It's a new year....already....again. I'm not sure how it goes by so quickly. 

 Maybe it would go slower if my life were a little less full, but I can't think of a single thing I want to sacrifice. 

 Nope. Cutting back is not on my list of New Year's Resolutions.

Lucky for you (my one reader/Dad), blogging more is on that list.

I honestly love looking through my old blog posts and being able to reference previous years with the click of a button.  I may not have a scrapbook I can pull out to show my kids pictures of Halloweens when they were tiny, but I still have proof of how stinking adorable they all were!

So, why give that up?

I am going to make time for blogging and also give you a little peek into my six months of solitude (laziness), when I didn't bother to write anything down.