Snack Time

After Sylvie gets up from her afternoon nap, she has a little snack. Little snacks make her very cheerful, and naps make her very beautiful--rosy cheeks and sparkly eyes.

She is sharing a cracker with you! It is soft and squishy--just a little chewed. Don't you wish you could take it? Or even better, let her stuff it into your mouth with her slobbery little fingers, which she finds HILARIOUS. Hilarious enought that I let her do it. I must be a real mom.

Some More Art

This first one was made for Sylvie. It features a house, a duck, stars and moon, a truck, and a few other things. Use your imaginations!

This one is a mother cockatoo and a baby cockatoo. Jens kindly did a tutorial for me and taught me how to draw one of these myself. It was a good art lesson. I am not sure why the cockatoo has antlers, but I thought it was one fancy bird!

Bursting with Pride

Today Jens did the "Story Writing Job" at school. This is what he wrote:

Isn't that a nice story? Didn't he do a good job with the illustration? I can't believe how grown up he is getting!

Boogie Queen

Well, she is dancing right now, but she sort of stopped as soon as I pulled out the camera. She has some pretty awesome hand waving moves. She is so cute these days. Yesterday she figured out how to climb--she got up on top of Jens's art table. Walking is becoming more and more popular. Yay!

Walking Girl

Long dresses are the key. When she wears a long dress, crawling becomes cumbersome. She does a bear walk, too, but walking is slowly becoming more popular. Be warned, this was right before nap time, so there is some complaining.

Found it!

$17.15

January 22

Rain, rain, go away!

It has been so wet here, and so windy. Our garbage can actually disappeared, presumably carried away by a particularly strong gust. Hopefully a new one will arrive today, as the trash really needs to go out!

We have been staying inside and staying dry. We've had some friends over for playdates to alleviate boredom, and Monday we spent three hours out--2 hours at the doctor's office trying to figure out why Sylvie was running a high temperature (102 Saturday, 104 Sunday) and 1 hour doing our grocery shopping. Sylvie is fine now and we never figured out what was wrong with her. Just some sort of virus, I guess.

Tuesday Jens and I made playdough.

I don't love how it turned out--I followed the recipe, but it is still really grainy. I think we need to find a different recipe and try again. Tuesday night Mike and I went to kindergarten orientation. We just couldn't believe we were there--it is hard to imagine Jens being at the big school, although we both know that he is SO ready. Hopefully he won't be too bored. Afterwords we ran some errands and got dessert, since we had a babysitter anyway.

Wednesday was book club and Laura came for dinner. It was one of those ridiculous days where everything felt stirred up and chaotic--Jens opened and scattered at least 10 little boxes of raisins around our house while I was trying to finish the book, I made broccoli cheddar soup for dinner, only to realize at 5:55 when the base of the soup came to a boil that I didn't have any broccoli (I was sure I had some!!). Jens was playing race cars, which entails running circles around the house very fast and very loudly. On the up side, I made lemon curd and blueberry scones, which turned out pretty well. They were actually much better the next day when I reheated them. I think I didn't bake them long enough the first time. But book club was very fun.

Thursday Sylvie woke up at her normal time, then fell back to sleep in bed with us. I snuck out to hang with Jens and Mike and Sylvie both slept in until 9:00! Mike needed it--he has been staying up so late to work.

Jens figured out that he loves listening to his Cars soundtrack on Mike's headphones. Hurray! He will sit and listen in the corner for an hour, playing with his cars and "steering." It is pretty cute.

Sylvie still refuses to walk, but she is so charming that we don't mind. I just hope she figures it out before the weather gets nice so we can go to the park.

So. That is our week.

January 15/Lazy Me

Well, it has been a little while. We have been settling back into our routine and into a new year. It hasn't been too exciting, although we have scheduled some home projects. We are hoping for some completion in a few unfinished areas. Monday a guy is coming to do dry rot repair along the side of the house. It has worried us since we moved in and we are finally taking the plunge. Tomorrow we are going to order a new patio door. Mike can stick his finger into the crack at the top of the door between the glass and the frame. It is time to get that fixed! We are also hoping to finish our bathroom sometime during the next year, but it is slow going. We have to finish making decisions and then get the work scheduled.

Our other fun thing was having the Johnson girls come and visit. Kristin, Mati, and Emilyn came and spent Wednesday night and all day Thursday with us. Kristin and I escaped to a movie Wednesday night (we saw Leap Year--the story was cute but predictable, but the scenery was beautiful) and Thursday we spent hanging out. The babies still nap a lot, so it is hard to go anywhere. Jens and Mati ran, played, squirted each other with the hose, got dirty, fought and made up. We went to the park for an hour or so and enjoyed the sunshine, which has been scarce around here. Jens was so excited to have company that he barely slept Wednesday night and after a big play day Thursday he was exhausted. Hopefully we weren't too boring and they'll want to come back! We love having them.

Other than that, we have been up to our normal things: allergy shots, school, yard work, visiting teaching, piano tuning, play group-ing, etc. I did do a big kitchen clean, emptying all the cupboards, wiping everything off, even getting rid of a few things. I was a little alarmed to see how many appliances I have, but I use them all!

Jens has decided that he loves having his picture taken and being videoed.

He frequently requests that I take pictures of him or of his creations. He also passed the milestone of 150 smiley faces on his chart, so he got to pick out a new car. It is pretty awesome. His love of all things Cars has now been going on for almost 3 years--more than half of his life! This week at school the kids were all going home with word strips to practice letter sounds. Jens didn't have one, so I asked his teacher about it. "Oh!" she said, waving her hand at me. "He doesn't need one! He knows all of his letters sounds and most of his sight words. He is great at sounding things out, too." WHAT?!? Apparently Jens knows how to read, he just doesn't care to do it. He and Mike have been reading chapters of The BFG at night and he is loving it. He even remembers the silly words (frobscottle, anyone?) and names of the giants. On a side note, tonight at dinner he prayed that all of the bad guys would turn in to good guys.

I have been enjoying something rare lately--my children playing happily together. It doesn't happen often and it doesn't last long, but a few days this week, Jens and Sylvie really played together and had a good time. They were both laughing! It is music to my ears and I hope it occurs more frequently with the passing weeks.

Sylvie has been getting a little more daring on her feet in that she actually uses them occasionally. It is so cute to see her upright. I hope she will start getting the idea that walking is pretty nice. She pushes all of her toys and she will even walk holding my hand, but crawling is still the definite preference. She continues to adore animals. Whenever she sees a dog in person she says "Awww!" and wants to touch. She loves to look at books, and she is the best at going to sleep. Her hair is so cute--it is getting really long, but it goes straight into her face and flops around. I squeeze her and kiss her all day long.

That's it from us.

Just for you, Laura

I was planning on just videoing her pushing her stroller--she was doing it one handed while holding her doll, but than she decided to show off her walking. We have had a couple of "long" walks today--for her that means more than four steps.

And yes, that is Christmas music in the back ground--I just haven't gotten around to emptying out our cd player yet.

To tide

you over until I write an actual post . . .

16 years later . . .

I have been carrying this picture around with me in a cardboard tube ever since Mom bought it for me, at least 16 years ago. Recently Jens discovered it and started using it as a sword, and I realized that if I didn't want it shredded, I had to do something with it. I ordered the custom mat before Christmas and picked it up today. I am really pleased with it, although I wish the picture didn't have all sorts of wrinkles and creases. This picture also shows the curtains I made for our front room.