five minute car seat blanket

Guys, this took me 5 minutes. 

Not even that, because I went super low tech, and didn't hem this at all.  But my model was heading to bed, and my sewing machine is neatly put away.  So here you have the no-sew car seat blanket, which I'm sure is on Pinterest already, but you know that rabbit hole: if I'd gone there to look, it would have taken me multiple hours of researching and prep, and getting majorly sidetracked on other projects for a brilliant Pinterest fail.  

Five minutes.  Half of that was probably taking the pictures. 

I got the cheapest fleece blanket from Walmart.  The kind I buy and give my dog.

Put it in the carseat, and marked the straps, which you can see in black sharpie. 

Cut across the buckle, and connected the dots.  I honestly will probably go back and stitch the tops and bottoms of these cuts at least so that it doesn't rip more.  You could easily hand stitch this if you're allergic to a sewing machine or don't have one.  Or use a stapler, I guess...

Put the kiddo in said blanket.

And then buckle and go.

Kaylee is also modeling her pajama style, which include a dress up skirt over her jam pants.

Jesse thinks we should just leave these in the car, but my objective behind these is that I don't always get the car warmed up before it's time to go places in the winter, and they'd be as cold as the car if we left them outside, ready to go.  I'm not sure what we'll end up doing, but what are 3 more blankets laying around the house and piled to take with us?

Again, I'm sure there are way better and much cooler car seat blankets you can make on Pinterest.  Or if you know a super crafty person.  This is my (less than) 5 minute model, and Kaylee was ready to go try it out immediately, so I think she's on board with it.

Lily/Emma/Kaylee 42

Emma: thanks, Kaylee!
Kaylee: you're welcome, babe!

Kaylee: where is the walking feet Ariel?
(meaning the Ariel with legs vs a mermaid tail)

Kaylee walked into the kitchen,
"I'm not saying anything, I just need a towel for a mess.."

Emma: MOMMA! When I yell, there's a gecko!
(echo)

Emma: I know what a Boxer is.  It's a dog you put in a box and send to someone else.

Jesse whispered to Lily and Emma:
Lily: DON'T TELL MOM!
Emma: ok, but Mom, don't look out the fire pit window, it's a surprise!

Emma held something out on her finger:
"Look it's an opening seed!"
Me: a sesame seed?

Emma: that's not funny, and I know funny!

Lily: let's get a princess cat that sparkles!
Emma: no, let's get a GOLDEN cat!
Lily: uh, gold cats aren't real.

Emma: can I have some M and Emmas?

Emma: MOM.  Aunt Shasta and Aunt Jess rhyme because they both have the "aunt" sound in it!

Kaylee: I love this show, crackle nuts.
(the Nutcracker)

I was doing a spelling lesson with Lily.
Me: spell, "cob."
Kaylee: HEY!  Like cob on the corn!

a baby doll fell out of the toy high chair:
Kaylee: oh, it's ok, she didn't die, she just fell.

Lily's 6th!

And here we are, into November, and my little Lily turned 6 at the end of September.  Over a month behind on documenting it, but whatever, she isn't graduating college yet, so I say I'm doing fine. 

Overall, she had a great day.  Grandma and Grandpa H had sent her a check with birthday money so she could go pick out something she wanted from the store.  When they watched the girls back in August, they reported that Lily just was enthralled with ads and commercials and kept pointing out the things she wanted, so they thought it'd be fun for her to go pick one.  She knew right what she wanted, and she convinced her daddy to get up bright and early on the morning of her birthday, "as soon as the toy store opens, Daddy," to pick out what she wanted.  My parents and Gigi were able to come spend the weekend with us, and we had a great time playing together as a family, celebrating with presents and cake, and enjoying being outside. 

We had a birthday party for her last year, for her 5th birthday, and I think she was hoping for a party this year also.  She handled her disappointment well, no complaining, but the sensitive momma side of me could tell that she was sad we didn't have more people over.  I am adding this paragraph for the sole purpose of stating a fact that I can cry about later when she's in college.

So far, she loves being six.  She honestly seems to be living each thing with new wonder, every single day.  I wish I could live this way.  Everywhere we go, though she's been 6 for a month now, she states, "this is the first time doing xyz since I turned 6, isn't it," or, "so and so hasn't seen me since I turned 6, have they."  Lily also got her ears pierced a few days before her actual birthday- more on that in a minute- and we can tell she just loves it.  She will mention that her friends just will not be able to guess what's different, or, "do you think they will noticed I have my ears pierced?"  She seems to really be a little girl now, completely gone of the toddler years, and I am having so much fun with my oldest girl.  We can sit and have good conversations about a ton of stuff- both light and silly, to serious- and play anything she can daydream, and then sit down and focus in on a specific challenge with a lot more attention than I ever had.  Jesse and I got her a pile of hemp, beads, and a book on different knots to make friendship bracelets, and she just loves it.  I don't know what is normal for 6 year olds, but to me, her dexterity is fantastic.  She braids everything, and it's a good solid braid, and can tie shoes well.  One of her presentations at school for our community day was to show/teach her class how to do something, and I suggested she take her doll with long hair in to give her class a demo to braid.  She loved that idea, and while she was practicing for Jesse and me one evening, couldn't figure out how to both show her class (Jesse and me), and successfully braid.  After trying a few things, she sat the doll in her lap backwards, and announced she'd just show us, and then proceeded to braid backwards towards her audience.  I can barely braid backwards as an adult, and I think my jaw hit the floor. 

So Lily expressed interest in getting her ears pierced around her 5th birthday.  Jesse and I talked about it, and decided she was old enough for that if she really wanted it, after I described in detail what they would do.  I'm not big on sugar coating the truth to my kids, and try to tell them as much of the truth as I/we feel they can handle at their respective ages.  After I told her exactly what would happen, she decided on her own to wait.  No problem as far as we were concerned, this was now absolutely her decision, as we wanted it to be.  She talked about it off an on for most of the year, deciding that 8 would be the perfect age to get her ears pierced.  We encouraged her that whenever she felt she was ready, we'd make her an appointment.  A little before her birthday, she decided she was ready.  I had fully planned on taking her to a tattoo/piercing place to get it done, and I barely could say piercing before they said no, absolutely no piercing on people under 18.  With that out the door, we drove immediately to the mall and got them done.  She was a champ.  She teared up, I told her she could cry if she wanted to and that I was proud of her, and Emma and Kaylee cheered her on.

Lily is caring, has a fabulous memory and attention to detail, and loves her people.  And all people are her people.  She asks me about everyone she has ever met, I think.  When I show her pictures of my friends, she knows who they are right off the bat, and typically asks if we can call them to say hi.  Heads up, friends, we may start doing that.  

the start of the school year

We are halfway through our 5th full week of school and I am just now sitting down to share about the first.  Oops.  

We actually did a couple days before our first day of Classical Conversations, just to reintroduce it to the kids and how our mornings would.  Additionally, we got back from our Canada trip the Monday before our first Community Day for our CC group, and I just wanted to get the ball rolling before then.

Lily is doing great.  She continues to memorize things pretty easily, and is doing well with math, reading, and spelling, even though I can't convince her that if she focused on her work, she'd be able to get it done in less time- and be able to do more than one page, some days- but her sisters "NEED" her, are "too loud," and "keep talking" to her.  Oh the joys.

To refresh for those of you who aren't familiar with the Classical Conversations group model, we meet weekly for a Community Day, where a tutor introduces the next week's information to a class of students.  So the kids get an "in class room" day, as well.  Lily is doing much better with working independently this year, both at home and our community day, and keeps telling me she doesn't need my help with her weekly presentations at CC- which is GREAT, but I keep forgetting and try to help her.  Oops.

Nothing too much to report here, her first grade year is off to a good start!

Emma.  Oh, sweet little Emma.  As I mentioned, our first Community Day was coming off a fun, long weekend away playing at Grandma and Grandpa H's, so I had to get the kids all moving pretty early Tuesday morning.  None of us were particularly thrilled with this.  The first day was incredibly overwhelming for Emma, and she cried most of the class time, poor thing.  She does fantastic at home, her memory work is down pat and she's buzzing through the math I have for her, but the in class days have been a struggle.  By Week 4, she finally was getting the hang of it, and only teared up once or twice, but no actual tears!  And no tears this past Tuesday either, YAY!  She isn't participating too much in class, but I know she's listening.  It's kind of tricky for me, because I'm tutoring her class, with Lily in it also, so I can't just handle things quite how I would at home.  She's getting there, and I'm figuring things out, I think.  Hopefully. 

Kaylee is doing well.  She isn't a huge fan of being dropped off for her preschool class at our Community Day, but after she calms down, she loves her class, and talks about it all the time.  She isn't really doing too much at home, mostly coloring or if I have a second, I'll work with her on tracing letters.  She absolutely lights up when she "stays in the lines!" and Lily and Emma come over to admire her work and praise her.  It's the best.  She is learning all the memory work right along with her sisters, and her favorites are to sing the Latin songs we are all learning, which is hilarious.  

And as this is my first year tutoring at our Community Day, I feel I might be getting into the swing of it?  I'm not sure yet, but I'm really enjoying it.  The kids in my class are fun and excited to learn (so far, we aren't close to Thanksgiving break yet!), so that really helps.  I feel much more organized with what I'm doing at home this year as well, which is making our days go smoother.

The girls are also playing soccer.  Well, Lily and Emma are.  They are on two different teams, on the same nights, at the exact same time, at two different locations.  Which is annoying for obvious reasons, but also kind of nice because we don't have soccer every night of the week.  Lily is enjoying it, and kind of paying attention some games.  Emma cries.  Haha, are you noticing a pattern?  Actually, the way this soccer program works is that the kids practice for half an hour and than scrimmage another team for half an hour.  She loves the practice part, but hates the scrimmage.  Oh well, she's only 4.  

ON THE FIELD, with no tears!

That's it for now, I guess!  Maybe I'll catch up on Lily's birthday and turning 6 next!  But in case I don't, no worries because Lily will be telling, "you know, I'm 6 now!" to pretty much anyone who will listen!

Lily/Emma/Kaylee isms 41

Emma pulled the draw string out of one of my hooded sweatshirts.
Me: Emma, did you do this?
Emma: yes.
Me: Emma, please don't mess with other people's things, why did you do this?
Emma: because it was right there...
:: I laughed so hard I was crying and had to have Jesse send her away so she wouldn't see me laughing while I tried to be stern.

Emma: look! Horses!
Me: oh cool.
Lily: why are they cool?
Me: well, you can ride them...
Lily and Emma: I WANT TO RIDE A HORSE!
Me: we can probably do that sometime.
Emma: well, we can't until we have the right hat!

Emma: oh look, two deer!
Lily: oh yes!  One is a buck, and one is a unicorn.

After a long dinner prayer,
Emma: and please help my toe to feel better, because I really like it.

At soccer,
One of Lily's teammates to Lily: what's your name?
Lily: Lily.
Teammate: I'm going to call you Layla.
Lily: I'm not going to talk to you anymore.

Lily: Momma, we'd like to listen to smooth music, please!
Me: move music?
Lily: NO! SMOOTH! Like cement. Smooth.

Emma: hey!  Cookie and cookieS both rhyme because they both have the cookie sound!

Kaylee: this is a runny babbit!

weekend trips

I just want to post really quickly on the last two weekends in August, because they were jam packed, I was super stressed, and a lot of fun was had.  And then I'll get to the start of our school year. 

So we went camping.  Lily, who we took camping when she was about 11 months old, tried telling her sisters all about it, and filling them in on what to expect.  Which was highly entertaining and not at all accurate, but whatever.  We have tried to encourage the girls to try new things, and remind them often that they can't know they don't like something until they've tried it.  While we typically are discussing foods I serve at dinner, Emma has caught onto it and started using it as her motto when she's nervous about new things, and will tell us she's nervous, "but I just have to try it because 'you don't know if you like it until you've tried it!'"  Love when they repeat the good things. 

our super awesome tent.

Anyway, we met up with our friends and their kiddos at the camp site on Friday night, down near Summersville, WV at a place called Ace Adventures.  We participated in the giant water park/pond, but they also have all kinds of outdoorsy activities.  The same weekend we intended to go, Ginny discovered that there was a 8 mile trail run.  AND we got a free night of camping and a free burrito bar out of the race, so of course we signed up.  Holy trail run.  They were serious and I about died.  It was the hardest race I have ever done, I hated every step of it and probably whined to Ginny too much, which is the real reason she was ahead of me the whole race and finished first (just kidding, but she did finish before I did!).  It was hilly.  The rocks hurt my feet.  I rolled my ankles all the time.  I fell.  BUT I got a free burrito at the end and a tshirt that says, "this was a lot of work for a free burrito," so all in all, a great race.

TADA, still alive.

this picture is just hilarious. this was after we finished, and the photographer asked us to cross the finish line again so she could get a better picture. 

We had a blast at the water park pond.  So.  Much.  Fun.  We played all day and watched the storm clouds roll in and we decided that we had had enough fun and we'd rather bail a night early than pack up in the rain or pack up wet tents, so we left Saturday evening for home.  Which worked in our favor, because there was a torrential downpour and I had no regrets about sleeping in my own bed for that.

So then we were home for a few days to unpack, laundry everything, and repack before we took off for Canada.  Jesse and I dropped the kids off at Mom and Dad H's on Wednesday evening and took off for upper New York to overnight with my aunt and uncle before heading into the neighboring country.  It was a short and fast visit, but I'm so glad it worked out we could see them and cousin Beth!  

We got up Friday morning and headed to Niagara Falls.  We had both been to the falls previously, but not together and we had all day to get to our hotel, so why not?  And since Jesse despises driving in big cities and hates stressful driving, I got to drive us into Canada and through downtown Toronto when we got there.  Jesse was very twitchy and nervous about the whole border crossing bit, but I made the guard laugh so I felt I got bonus points.  So at the falls.  It was ridiculously hot, Jesse saw his first selfie stick in the wild (which may have been the highlight of his trip?), and he kept getting feisty that I was giving my phone to random people to take our picture.  I told him he should have bought me a selfie stick and we could have solved this problem.  He wasn't amused.

After our pit stop at the falls, we headed to Toronto.

Several months ago, Jesse told me that the North American finals for a computer game he plays/follows would be up in Toronto.  I suggested that because it was so close, he should go.  What followed in the next 10 minutes was a very hectic conversation of him telling me some of his college friends would be going, me saying maybe the kids and I would tag along and go explore the city and then finally both of us settling on the fact that we'd ask grandparents to watch the kids for us so we could go together to the finals.  Done and done, don't have to ask me twice.  In addition to a group of college friends going, one of my cousins basically runs the whole lighting aspect of it (or something...but this is my blog and you don't know, so I'm gonna say the whole production would fall apart without him), and he would also be going to do his thing, so yay! 

So anyway.  We got to our hotel, checked in, and Jesse spent a few minutes changing our cell phone plan to include Canada so we could actually use our phones, and then headed out to try and intercept our friends coming in from the train station.  I was navigating us there and just as Jesse was getting antsy that I'd taken a side street and we'd certainly miss our friends- as they'd be on the main street- we just about literally ran into them on the corner.  Since we walked everywhere, we got close to 30 miles of walking in a 3 day (ish) period, and Heather and I were glad we had decided not to go for early morning jogs. 

I have no idea why there was a boat there...but there was and we were on it!

greatest picture ever.

super excited to try poutine. 

Jesse and I were also able to meet up with another friend from college who lives in Toronto, which was very spontaneous and awesome that we got to, and do some sight seeing in between League of Legands events.  We made it out to the Toronto Island Park with Heather and Teddy, which was very pretty and cool, and definitely worth the trip.  

After the finals, Geoff invited us to go hang out with some of his production people, and I'm not sure how it the connection was made but we also ended up with some of the production people for Kanye West's tour?  AND I got to go on my first Uber ride and felt super VIP. 

So the tournament.  I've watched Jesse play, I've watched the professionals play, I just never really followed what was going on until that weekend.  And now Heather and I actually get what's going on.  I don't think the guys were too impressed by all the names we were coming up with for the champions, but it made it much more entertaining for me, at least.  The third place game was crazy and loud, mostly because of the high school girls behind us, but the finals was just on a completely different level of intense.  

packed house for the finals

A very fun and different experience.  The first time I've ever been in an jam packed hockey stadium/arena/field (what is it?) where there was never a single line for the women's bathroom, but the guy's was out the door.  I took a picture because I was so amused.  

And that is that!

#hildebrandgirltrip 2016

I had a nice entry mostly ready to go about our #hildebrandgirltrip and hit "save," but that apparently didn't do what it was supposed to do and so here I am, starting over.  

Oh well. 

This was the third summer of our girl trip, and I have really enjoyed them and am so glad we've been able to do it.  I'm a hot mess for most of the trip, but it's getting easier as the kiddos get older, and I'm glad we have the opportunity to visit family and do some fun stuff we don't get to here.  The first summer was the busiest, as we centered it around 2 baby due dates and a wedding.  Last year was 2 birthday parties, and this year, one birthday party for Cameron.  And, the girls got some time with Mimi and Poppo while I went to Louisville for some brother/sister in law time!

First stop, Findlay, OH! 

Lily gave a private concert.

the girls got to try out playing a harp.

We went to Swan House for a real tea party 

Then we were off to Fishers, IN! 

Indianapolis Zoo!

We saw the dolphin show!

We played at the splash pad at the zoo and loved it.

We spent as much time in the pool as Lily could convince us to. 

We read stories.

We went swimming with, "Momma's Friend Emily, whose wedding we went to," as Lily fondly refers to her.

We disguised huge meltdowns as cute Mom/Daughter moments (but this was actually a huge meltdown from Kaylee).

We went to Mrs. Curl.

We made French fry mustaches.

We went swimming.  Again.

We played with sparklers!

We had a birthday party for Cameron!

Big 2 Year Old boy!

Then Joel and I roadtripped to Kentucky!  And we all discovered that I just say whatever I'm thinking and ramble on for a long time about nothing when I don't have little people interrupting, asking questions and being my children and needing things every 0.5 seconds.

We went for a run and loved life.

I text this to Jesse and his response was, "NO."  Kimmy's foster kittens are the best.

We pretended we'd never seen deer before and were wildlife adventurers. 

And I thought I had more pictures to share, but this is apparently it for now.  So there you have it!  I'll try and share about school soon!