Happy Birthday, Ruby Nell!

Aaron and I were recently talking about the irony involved in the fact that it took us a much longer time to "bond" with Ruby than it did with Kai.  Before we adopted Kai, we read book after book about bonding and how important attachment was and how difficult it can sometimes be for adoptive families.  Well, we adopted Kai when he was two months old, and within the first week of knowing him, we were bonded for life.  It was so easy.  He instantly felt like our son, and with that huge grin of his, well...he had us at "hello."  So, when I was pregnant with Ruby I didn't give a second thought to the idea of attachment and bonding.  And then, one year ago today, out she came about a month before we were "ready."  We were certainly not ready for the juggling act that characterized the first few months of Ruby's life.  Aaron had just started a new job, I was in my last year before going up for tenure at UTA, Kai was still very much mama's baby, and Pla Shee was trying hard to get used to the demands of fourth grade.  Those first weeks (and months) saw more than their share of tears.  Our family figured out along the way that newborn babies are clearly amazing and wonderful, but also demanding, loud, and not very good at sleeping.  Happily, the newborn stage and other "unfun" parts of having a new baby were over before too long, and after a few months we finally got our groove back.  Ruby is now the easiest, happiest one year old she could possibly be, and she's pretty darn cute, too!  Needless to say, we've bonded, and have decided she's officially a keeper.  ;)

It's been too long!

Needless to say, we've been busy! Now that we're back in the swing of things with school and work, I'll try to get back into the swing of things with the blog as well.  A few random pictures from the past few weeks to get caught up to speed today:

Here are Pla Shee and Ruby building a tower (Kai's in the background) at the Fort Worth Children's Museum.  What a great place!  This summer, Fridays were our day to try out a new activity or visit a new place around the metroplex.  The Fort Worth Children's Museum was definitely the big winner.  They have great exhibits and activities that appealed to Kai and Ruby as well as 11 year old Pla Shee--not an easy feat!

Here Aaron and Kai are clowning around at Pla Shee's soccer practice.  He has practice two evenings a week, and games on Saturdays, which is a big commitment for our family!  He really seems to enjoy it, though, and Kai and Ruby love the extra time that they get to spend on the playground waiting for practice to finish.

Ruby is getting so big!  She turns 1 this Friday, and she just gets cuter every day.  She's taken a few steps here and there, but I'm sure she'll be running around keeping up with her big brothers in just a few more weeks.

Tomatoes and Turkeys

I figured we're probably way past due for an update on the farm, so here's a quick one today.  We spent the week with just Ruby this week because Pla Shee went to camp and Kai stayed with his MeMe.  It was VERY different, but fun to spend some quality time with our little 9 month old alone.  She was my helper today as we picked tomatoes and took care of baby turkeys.

As I probably mentioned before, this was a CRAZY year for us trying to adjust to having three kiddos, a farm, and full-time jobs.  Needless to say, the garden was pretty much an utter failure.  This was actually the first year that we didn't start our own seeds.  :(  But all was not lost.  We bought about 20 tomato transplants from a local farmers market in the spring and planted them in the backyard along the fence.  The wood posts and netting that you see in the picture is our marginal attempt to keep stray chickens, turkeys, and guineas from eating the tomatoes. 

We've had amazing luck this year with Porters--they're very prolific and we literally pick a bowl's worth of tomatoes just about every evening.

Here's my helper demonstrating that tomatoes make good teethers.

We've also had really good luck with our turkeys, and just had another five hatch the other day.  We had to move the "teenagers" to a new pen across the yard to make room for the new babies.

The sheep, goats, and donkeys are managing so far this summer, but we're bracing ourselves for what will inevitably be a very hot July and August.  That said, the Mitschke clan is headed down to the beach at Rockport this afternoon for some fun in the sun!

9 months old...already?!!

I am blown away that Ruby is already 9 months old!  She is such a joy, and we enjoy her smile and giggles so much.  What a blessing she is to our family.  It is so crazy to me how quickly my little ones are growing up.  It seems like just the other day that Kai was 9 months old.  One thing is for sure...we were definitely blessed with two of the happiest babies ever.  As evidence, here is Ruby this morning and, just for fun,  a pic of Kai when he was 9 months old.  LOVE them!
 

 

Homestead Heritage and other fun

I know I've posted several times in the past about Homestead Heritage in Elm Mott, TX.  We just love to visit, especially for lunch.  Before the kids were around, Aaron and I took a few classes there--organic gardening, how to spin wool into yarn, making goat cheese, beekeeping, etc.  We headed down to Elm Mott for lunch and homeade ice cream on Saturday (it was fabulous, as usual), and wandered around the grounds a bit.

Sunday afternoon some of our Karen friends came over to the house for a visit.  Kai was especially happy, because his friend Jasmila came too.  Here are some pics of the gang hanging out in Ruby's room.

Jasmila doing some shopping.

Kai cooking.

Ruby and Pla Shee hamming it up for the camera.

Silly face time.

Kai asking what we'd like him to cook.

Coloring and enjoying "Spider Man Juice."

Dinosaurs

 Kai is REALLY into dinosaurs right now, so a couple of weekends ago we headed to Glen Rose for lunch and a stop at Dinosaur World.  The great news is that since he's still only 2, he doesn't yet realize that Dinosaur World is actually more than a few dinosaur statues sitting in a parking lot.  Yep, we're too cheap to pay the $13 admission charge, and honestly, it was getting close to naptime for the kiddos.  But, as you can see from the pic, both Ruby and Kai were satisfied with the experience.

Just for fun, here's Kai on the same dinosaur in Glen Rose in May 2010.

Summer is here!

 

With graduation behind us, it is officially summer here at the Mitschke house!  The boys' last day of school is this Friday, and then we'll be in full-fledged summer mode until August.  We took our longest road trip with 3 kiddos yet to Lubbock this past weekend to celebrate Amanda's graduation from Texas Tech.  It ended up being a great trip--fun to see Amanda and the rest of the family, and also fun to spend the weekend in "the best hotel in the world" (Pla Shee's quote).  Apparently the Red Roof Inn in Lubbock ranks highly in the mind of an 11 year old boy because: 1) there is an indoor pool in the lobby; 2) said pool has a huge hot tub; 3) our hotel room window overlooked said indoor pool.  Not exactly the criteria I would have considered in my ranking, but Pla Shee was absolutely thrilled with it.  While I don't have pics from the Lubbock adventure (I left the photography to my extremely talented photographer uncle Lyndy), I do have pics of the kiddos splashing around in our new "dragon" pool and last year's slip n slide.  Hooray for summer!

Ruby is not as thrilled about summer as the rest of us.

 

Uncle Lyndy and Aunt Sara came for a visit from St. Louis!