Little fish.

My intention was to sign Calvin up for swimming lessons as soon as possible, which I think is around six months. Three years later I finally got around to doing it. And once he finished that class, I did it again. Go me. Always so on top of things.

Last night was the first time I got to take him to swim, and it was so much fun to watch him. Such a brave kiddo when it comes to the water — he was the first to volunteer for every activity, and kept looking over to make sure I was watching. I even got a thumbs-up mid-dog paddle, because that's safe.

Side note: There was a kid named Calvin in the other swim class. You know how many times we've run into another Calvin in the past four years? Once, at the Minnesota Zoo. Of course this one will probably go to school with him since we were at our neighborhood Y.

Anyway, here are my attempts at capturing his adorableness while sitting on a hard concrete bench alongside a bunch of moms who were not watching much less taking pictures of their kids. I tried to be discreet, but I'm pretty sure it didn't work. Hey, at least I talked myself out of bringing the Nikon.

Hiiiii!

This morning Audie walked from room to room, pointing at everything and babbling excitedly. Every time she saw one of us she would say "hiiiii!" happily, then turn and walk back out, babbling all the way down the hallway and into the next room.

Pretty sure I don't need to tell you how much I adore this baby girl. Or her bow.

Unfiltered Friday.

Apparently this will be more of an as-needed/remembered feature.

Only the best plate of food on earth.

Went to a planting class with my mother- and sister-in-law.

I have no idea what I put in here. Will be a fun surprise come May!

Wary of the Easter Bunny making rounds at brunch.

Keep it classy, Easter princess.

Oh yeah. She's still got it, 25 years later.

Reading with G-Pop.

Girls can be construction workers, too.

Love them.

Coconut cake is perfectly acceptable morning fare when you're at Nana's.

No caption necessary.

Waiting.

Yesterday I dropped a big packet of paperwork in the mail.

We had to answer question after question about our child. His health. His verbal skills. His sensory system. His social, self help, gross motor, fine motor, and general development.

His temperament.

444 questions, in total. None of them ours.

So now we wait. Not for answers to our questions, but for a phone call to make an appointment for an evaluation to get us started on a path that we hope will eventually yield answers to our questions and help for our child.

He's healthy, we know that. He's incredibly smart, we know that. He's not showing classic signs of common childhood disorders. We know that.

We also know that he is beautiful and bright and loving and strong and remarkable.

But he's having a really hard time, this precious boy of ours. And so are we.

Your prayers would be appreciated as we wait for answers.

My hope is in you, Lord
All the day long
I won't be shaken by drought or storm
A peace that passes understanding is my song
And I sing
My hope is in you, Lord

12-18.

I did not love 12-18 months the first time around.

In fact, it was kind of terrible. Cute, but terrible. Lots of biting and insane tantruming and general unpleasantness.

But this time around? Oh heavens.

This little lady is 15 months old. And she has become a total firecracker. Our once reserved, laid back, observant little girl is now an instigator, a tease, a tantrum thrower, and a daredevil.

My kids never cease to surprise me.

I mean, Audra is still Audra. She is still reserved and observant, but she's become a little less laid back. She now has opinions, and she will gladly, and loudly, let you know what they are.

We took her to urgent care for a suspected ear infection two weeks ago, and she gave the doctor a stone-faced stare down that resulted in the physician saying "She looks like she might shiv me!"

We call that her B face. I don't think I need to explain that to anyone. Looks a little something like this:

I hope that face will be used for good and not evil when she's a teenager. Like when a guy who doesn't bathe regularly, isn't on the honor roll, and whose parents we don't like asks her out.

She's a sassy little thing. And she has some serious spunk. She pokes and prods and laughs at Calvin constantly, which I find hilarious. Him, not so much — though he has a lot of patience with her. She's super active, and is never content to sit still. She loves to be flipped around, thrown in the air, and fake dropped. She would jump on our bed for hours if we let her. Her tantrums are hilarious — she folds herself in half and puts her head on the floor and wails. Like a crying teepee.

Babies are her favorite toy right now. She has a few of them, and she likes to give them lots of hugs and kisses while saying "Baby. Baby. Baby." over and over again. She loves puppies and pants with her tongue out every time she sees one. She's a total bookworm just like her mama and brother — her favorites right now are Let's Dance Little Pookie, Counting Kisses, Touch and Feel Baby Animals, Noah's Ark, and Brown Bear Brown Bear — and she loves to pull all of Calvin's books off his shelf.

She also loves to eat. Her favorite food, by far, is cheese. She can down a cheese stick in less than a minute. She generally eats what we eat, but avocado, blueberries, cheetos (no judging), strawberries, hummus on pita chips, scrambled eggs, edemame, raw mushrooms, cottage cheese, applesauce, and yogurt are her favorites. She's not really into meat these days, but she can put the hurt on a hot dog.

Her vocabulary is made up of seven words (mama, dada, uh oh, hi, bye, baby, blankie), a handful of sign language (all done, more, water) and some emphatic head shaking (NO!). She loves to be held (so long as you're moving...sitting still is not okay) and has gotten slightly more comfortable with snuggling, though she is still a very independent sleeper. We read, we sing, I hold her for as long as she'll allow, and then she goes in her bed, where she flips to her stomach, scrunches her butt up in the air, and stares at me until I leave the room. She sleeps from 7-7, and naps for two hours in the afternoon.

The other night before bed I asked her to put her toys away. I don't know why I asked her, because I didn't actually expect her do it, but lo and behold...she walked her two little wooden condiment bottles over to her play kitchen and put them on the shelf. She had to stand on her tiptoes to get them on it, but that's where she'd gotten them and that's where she was returning them. For cute.

I feel like 15 months marks the beginning of the end of her babyhood. She's still so deliciously baby-like in many ways, with that chubby little finger pointing out things that delight her and lots of squeals and grunts and running around naked. But her understanding of the world is getting broader, and her vocabulary and physical abilities are, too. She's growing so fast I can hardly believe it. But instead of the sorrow I expected to feel watching my last baby grow into a little girl, there is only joy.

12-18 months. Who knew.

Audra's 15 months stats:
Weight: 22lbs 1oz (37th)
Height: 31.5in (84th)
Head: 18.24in (67th)

De-tanning.

Like my new wreath?

I can't tell you how ridiculous this looks on my front door when we have two feet of snow on the ground.

I can, however, tell you that I don't give a hoot. I love ridiculous. Ridiculous is my favorite!

I threw this together the other night (Mod Podge is my new BFF) because I just can't stand this blah wintery blahness for one more second. I love the snow, but I am tired of the gray and dreary backdrop. Gray trees, dirty snow, concrete. Blah! So my gray and dreary front entrance complete with dead Christmas garland now boasts this wildly inappropriate-for-the-weather wreath. 

I actually laughed when I saw it from the street for the first time. It's pretty bright, even from a distance. But bright is good! I need bright right now! And my house really needs bright right now. Which leads me to my poorly named year-long home futzing initiative:

PROJECT COLOR.

(Sorry, couldn't help myself.)

So, here's the deal. My house is boring me to tears. The only room we've painted since we moved in is Calvin's. The house was freshly painted in a neutral palette when we bought it, and it worked with our existing furniture so we went with it. And it's not bad, by any means. I think most people would say we have a nice house painted in a nice color palette.

It's just so...tan.

While I love tan as a skin tone and very much wish I could achieve it for myself, I do not love it as a house tone. It's a lovely color, it's just not me. It may have been me six years ago, when I was taking my newly married adult homeowner status very seriously and shopping exclusively at Pottery Barn (before everything there had a lobster or shell on it), but since then my style has evolved and our family has grown. What worked for Nate and Abby in 2007 no longer works for Nate and Abby and Calvin and Audra and Matilda in 2013. Adult dinners have since given way to kid playdates, and what we need and want now is a bright, fun, comfortable space for our family and friends. A home where our kids can play and create and be inspired. A home where I don't feel like I have to tuck all the kid stuff out of sight because it doesn't "go."

There are a few rooms in our house that already meet this criteria: the kitchen, Calvin's room, Audra's room. Our bedroom will be painted and redecorated this spring, but I consider that a separate effort. The bathroom is fine — again, not what I'd choose but also not at the top of my priority list. I might make some minor updates to that later in the year.

The real focus of this effort will be our primary living space: the entryway, living room, and dining room. These areas need to be brighter, lighter (in both color and personality), and more functional for a busy family of four. We have a very small house, so every part of it really needs to be livable and usable.

I've already put some parameters on this initiative, since I would most assuredly go crazy and spend all of our money without them.

Wall colors stay. I hate painting, and this would be a major undertaking (difficult with small children). So instead of ridding our home of tan, I will just attempt to distract from it.

Furniture stays. All of our living and dining room furniture is high quality and in good condition. While it may not be what I'd purchase today, it would be ridiculous to replace it and I want to work with what I have. I am open to swapping out/modifying some of our less expensive pieces, though.

Rugs stay. Both of mine are from Pottery Barn and relatively new so I can't justify the expense of replacing them. I wish they were brighter, but at least the living room rug has some color to it and the dining room rug is fairly neutral.

Plate wall stays. I still love it and it took me forever. I do anticipate some plate updates, however.

No big purchases. I don't want to break the bank on this, so Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel and the like will be off-limits.

My goal is to inject color and life into these three rooms relying solely on discount/thrift store finds and DIY projects. I'm giving myself a year to accomplish this, because it will take time and I want to do it right. And I'm putting it on the blog because I want the accountability of having to show you what I've done at the end of the year.

I'm not a Pinterest queen or inspired decorator, so I really have no idea how this will go. Change and risk-taking are both really hard for me! But I'm excited to give myself a project, challenge myself creatively, and hopefully end up with a home that better reflects our family, our lifestyle, and our values.

And I promise to show you everything, even the DIY disasters. I'm sure there will be plenty of those.

Unfiltered Friday

Like everyone else on earth with a smartphone and a kid or two, I take about eight gazillion pictures a week. I try to control my Instagram output (some weeks are better than others) because I know I am way more interested in my children than other people are, but I hate how all those iPhone pictures tend to get forgotten. All of my "real" pictures from the Nikon are filed and backed up, but my iPhone pics just sit in my camera roll until I get the "cannot take picture, not enough storage" message and have to frantically start deleting them.

True story: my Shutterfly app has been backing up my iPhone photos for three days. Still not done.

Anyway, one the blogs I follow does a Friday feature where she posts her favorite Instagram pics from the week. Since I don't typically put a ton of pictures on Instagram, I decided maybe I'd just rip off her cute idea and devote Fridays here to my favorite phone pics from the week. That way they won't be forgotten (especially since I do a much better job of capturing our life with my phone than my camera), and I might actually remind myself to back them up and make some room for new ones on a regular basis.

Probably not, but it's worth a shot.

For the record, this is like half of March, and not just my favorites from the last week. Though I probably took about ten times this many pictures within the last week.

What? My kids are cute.

Bedtime fun with the Bub.

A tisket, a tasket, Audie's in a basket.

Focused on his writing.

Chocolate chip cookies are a staple at our house.

I knew you were trouble when you walked in.

Funny baby toes.

Cereal and juice and Doc McStuffins.

Hmm. Wonder where my birthday cannoli went.

Reading with Louie.

Goodbye, youth.

Hello, middle-aged motherhood.

Blue skies and snow up north.

Frogger.

Post-nap bed head for the both of us.

Grooming.

Regrowth.

I claimed an offer from Cafe Press and I liked it.

A good day at school!

Reading 'bout the ark.