what makes it vacation

Vacation with three little ones has been whittled down to its simplest form. No sleeping in, no fancy restaurant dinners, no expensive or involved events, no schedule to follow. Just swimming and family time. We eat P.B.J.s and mac and cheese out of the condo kitchen, take naps when we need them, and all the in-between time find us swimming in the pool or at the beach.

It is special because we are together. It is restful because we have low expectations for accomplishing anything outside of being together. It is vacation because Daddy is around ALL the time, thus greatly increasing the adult to child ratio.

Here are a few highlights from our recent trip to Kauai...

Thanks to a 3-hour time change, we made it to the beach for a lot of beautiful sunrises. Thanks to the balmy weather and deserted beach, clothing was optional (for the kids, at least.)

Our kids become better friends every time we take a trip together. It is a beautiful thing to witness and makes my heart feel full.

Annike learned to swim and snorkel on this trip. She can name every fish she saw. We were so proud of her bravery in the ocean.

Daddy enjoyed catching lizards, and Sommer enjoyed holding them.

This little guy discovered that his new favorite food is sand. If you look closely, you will see the sand goatee in the majority of his photos.

Happy Mother's Day to me!  How did I get so lucky to have these three precious kids making me cards, drawing me pictures, giving me back scratches, and whining for me to feed them on Mother's Day?

Vacations are a priceless time of memory making. We never forget how much we love each other, but it is good to be reminded how much we LIKE each other.

celebrate music

Today's post is just a little celebration of life! Annike's first piano recital was this past Saturday, and I have never been more proud of someone who played 30 seconds of "Skip to my Loo".

I joined her up on stage for the duet part, and as a confidence booster. Though the last time I played piano in front of someone may have been in the first grade. Violin is my instrument.

We want to have children who play musical instruments and have a musical skill they can use for the rest of their lives. A year ago we started Annike on the violin. I soon discovered that children resist doing things that are only Mom's idea. Both lessons and practice met with so much resistance that I gave up and let her choose something else.

I couldn't seem to find any, but my mother has quite a few pictures of me playing violin just like this - in my underwear. She comes by it honestly.

Now that I am a mother myself, I can better appreciate what a HUGE undertaking it was for my mother to get all three of her children (myself, my brother, and my sister) to play a stringed instrument from the time we were around 5, until we left the house at 18ish. When we left, each one of us had mastered our chosen instrument well enough to have it for life. We recently came across this picture of me at one of my own recitals around the age of 10.

I well remember having a bad attitude about practicing and playing in general. What child would rather do work than play outside? As I encourage Annike to pursue her musical talents, I try to remember that even though I did not always want to do it, I have never held it against my own mother for encouraging and enabling me to play. Even at a young age I understood what a great gift she was giving me. As it turns out, that gift paid a majority of my way through college, and has the potential for side jobs and fun for me for the rest of my life.

Thank you, Mom! Though I can't return the favor, I can pass on the legacy of implementing, studying, and celebrating music in our family.

quotable

I've gotta write this stuff down, lest the innocence of childhood is lost forever in the recesses of my forgetfulness.

Recent quotes about Karsten

Annike: (said in reference to the picture below)
"Awww... He looks like a little bee larvae!"
You know? I might not have put it that way, but I think you're right.

Annike: (said with the excitement of a 5-year-old who has just had a lightbulb go off in her head)
"I know! I can marry HIM when I grow up!"
Phew. Glad we got that one figured out.
I am sure she will change her mind in approximately 18 months when he is destroying everything she has ever worked hard to perfect.

Sommer: (said with the tenacity of a 2-year-old)
"No, Baby Karsten! Mine!"
Okay... we have a little work to do on this sister.

Note that Sommer is in the baby's bouncy seat. She is actually adjusting much better than we expected, but doesn't exactly play the part of the adoring sister yet.

mine

Every day this precious little boy's appearance changes. Every day a new feature of his stands out to me, making him look like someone different. How can they grow so fast at this age?

The thing is, that they grow just as fast when they are older, we just forget to notice it because their appearance isn't changing quite as rapidly.

Here are a few comparison shots of my three kids at the same age.

The sleepy newborn shot:

Annike

Sommer

Karsten

The profile shot:

Annike

Sommer

Karsten

The newborn with eyes open shot:

Annike

Sommer

Karsten

Best shot around 3 weeks of age:

Annike

Sommer

Karsten

When I am old and looking at these pictures, I will be able to tell Karsten apart because he will be the only one wearing blue. Annike will be the one without any meat on her bones. And Sommer will be the darker, chunky one (which we adore about her). What I know for sure is that I won't be returning Karsten to the hospital any time soon because I know without a doubt that he is one of mine.

another birthday

Introducing Karsten Paul Negard! A BOY!! And another birthday to add to our end of September celebrations.

Born on Saturday, September 28, 2013 at 12:51pm

7 pounds, 15 ounces, 20 1/4 inches

The name Karsten is the Germanic or Dutch form of the name Christian, meaning "follower of Christ". It fits in nicely with our Scandinavian set of names, and we just plain like the name.

His middle name was given in honor of my father, Paul, who will surely be a favorite playmate of Karsten's just as he is of our daughters. Paul means "humble".

We pray little Karsten will always be a humble follower of Christ.

He is welcomed with great love and affection, and a little apprehension, by his two older sisters.

Little Karsten was born after around 2-2.5 hours of labor, which felt like a decade to me. I had this unrealistic expectation that birthing a third child would be much easier than the first two. Hmmmm. As soon as I can get my act together as a mother of three, I will share more details.

For now, suffice it to say that all of our prayers were answered in that mom and baby are both healthy and baby wasn't born in the car. He arrived only one day past my due date - HUGE GIGANTIC relief for me. I really didn't think I could carry two weeks late again this time around. And Christian was especially pleased that I decided to bring him into the world at a convenient time instead of the middle of the night.

I can't believe we have a little BOY in the house!!!! Our lives are about to change...

birthdays in review

We made it through crazy birthday week, celebrating both girls over the weekend. I was worried that they weren't going to get any attention this year with me being so exhausted and pregnant and all that goes with it. I was wrong.

Instead of spending these next few days (or dreadful weeks) twiddling my thumbs, and eating, as we wait and wait for this baby to come, and hopefully don't have to wait any longer than that, here is a brief overview of all the birthday fun...

One of the advantages of having birthdays close together is receiving one giant, shared gift!

This gift has so far served as an incredible source of entertainment and energy outlet. Both much needed in this time of laying low. It may also be used to induce labor if I am still pregnant a few days from now.

Another advantage is the number of times the girls got to blow out candles on their cakes. Pictured below we have
     Sommer blowing out the candles on her own cake,
     Sommer blowing out the candles on Annike's cake, and
     Sommer blowing out candles on leftover cake just because she really wanted to.
I think she was confused about when her actual birthday was because for 4 days straight there was some sort of celebration happening.

Another birthday favorite was the family party. This year it included my parents and my sister and her hubby. The best part is that the birthday girls didn't miss having friends their own age at their party because they love playing with their relatives so much! This may not always be the case, which makes this season in their lives special.

Apparently I don't take pictures of adults any more because this is the best I could pull up of the family. Note those in the background...

Because we didn't think we were doing much to celebrate this year, we made a special birthday trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Definitely a highlight for both little gals. In fact, I can't think of anything else they would have rather done.

The aquarium trip included dinner out and the very first time Annike has ever been sung to in a restaurant (for that matter, it was probably the first time that she has ever heard "Happy Birthday" sung in a restaurant to anyone, let alone herself.) She was absolutely mortified. This precious little girl looked like she was about to cry as she stared at me across the table with an extremely tortured expression that pleaded, "Why are you letting them do this to me?!" Only after she started eating the ice cream did a shy smile appear.

The most unexpected birthday blessing this year came from another kindergarten mother at Annike's school. Her little girl has a birthday the day before Annike's. Within the first few weeks of school this lady sought me out to invite Annike to have a joint birthday party with her daughter... at her house... for the 6 little girls (plus siblings) in their class... with no extra planning or work from me.

I was truly touched by her hospitality and deep desire to share her own daughter's special day with us. As we had no plans this year because Momma is super-pregnant and couldn't swing a party, we agreed. I twisted her arm to let me help with a few items like party favors and some food, but for the most part we just showed up at the right time and had a BLAST at this little tea party.

The little girls all arrived after school for lunch and tea and were shuttled into a room full of dress-up clothes. I am now fully convinced that a little girl's childhood is not complete without a tea party. These girls were in and out of the dress-up room all afternoon trying on different outfits and being girly together. It was delightful to watch.

As I mentioned above, it was this other mother's generosity that touched me. She viewed this birthday celebration as an opportunity to teach her daughter that birthdays are not about Me, or about getting presents, or about being self-centered for a day. She wanted her daughter to view her birthday as an opportunity to include others, to reach out, and to celebrate lives, plural, instead of one life, singular..

The lesson was for me. I question whether I would have done the same for someone else given a reverse situation. And yet it was such a beautiful and simple invitation that she offered us, to be a part of a birthday celebration she was already planning. She showed me genuine unselfishness on a birthday - a day that I have always made a special allowance for a certain amount of selfishness. But why? Did I think that some of the Biblical instructions for laying ourselves aside did not apply to birthdays? Perhaps I did.

Still we wait for our next little one to arrive, and eagerly anticipate his or her birthday. While having overlapping birthdays was not always my ideal picture for celebrating my children, I can say that I am happy to know we will always be learning about participating in more of a collective birthday celebration than a wholely individual one.