Thursday, December 15, 2011

New Tradition

This year Rachael and I planted an amaryllis bulb just before Thanksgiving. We were amazed at how fast and how big it grew. Every day Rachael would point out it's progress to me. It has fully bloomed and looks amazing. I think we've found a new Christmas tradition.


Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Why?

Rachael did it. I think she's too young for it, or maybe I'm just not ready. It was so out of the blue. She took me completely by surprise. I was frozen for a second or two. Thoughts of "What am I going to do? What am I going to say?" ran through my mind.
But, she did it. She looked me in the eye and said, "Why?"

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Thanksgiving Cactus

My cactus blooms a little earlier each year. We had beautiful blossoms for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas this year.


Sunday, November 27, 2011

No One is Safe

I took this video of Anna Thanksgiving morning. I'm pretty sure she will be crawling full speed by Christmas. Look out world. Here she comes.


Sunday, November 6, 2011

Punkins

Rachael loves "punkins". We picked ours at the Red Barn farm again this year. Rachael's favorite was a small white one about the size of a baseball. Go figure. Patrick has all the pictures of her in the fields on his phone. I have the ones on the straw bales. It is hard to take good pictures of her now. She doesn't hold still. It's a good thing she's cute.



Tuesday, November 1, 2011

October Poppy

I had one random poppy that bloomed in the middle of october, even after we had a couple of inches of snow. It made me happy.


Monday, October 31, 2011

Zombie Vomit

Halloween dinner consisted of slimy snakes and zombie vomit. Rachael was iffy about eating it when I said "snakes", but once she started she ate it all. We didn't remember to take pictures of the girls in their costumes, or us in ours. Go figure. Happy Halloween!


Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Look Ma, No Hands

Anna sat without support today for about a minute. She's getting so big. Where is my little baby?


Saturday, October 8, 2011

D I

Rachael was in heaven during our trip to DI. The kids clothes are right next to the shoes.



Thursday, October 6, 2011

More harvest pics

Here are just a few more pictures from our garden. Our bell pepper plants did almost as well as our insane squash. Rachael likes helping, although I have to be very specific about exactly what to pick or we end up with a lot of green tomatoes in the bag.





Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Anna Pacified

Anna loves her mouth. She sticks everything in it. Much more than Rachael ever did. Lately she has been shoving things very far back in her mouth (see Patrick's post below). She really likes her pacifier and if she's not sleepy, this is the way she hangs on to it.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Sign of things to come?

Anna was sitting in the bouncy seat tonight and when I looked up this is what I found. Is this a sign of things to come?

Friday, September 16, 2011

Bounty

It's officially harvest time here. We've been picking loads of squash this past month, but tonight takes the cake. Would you look at those roma's? Gorgeous. All this was picked just tonight.




Monday, September 12, 2011

First Day of... School?

I've been so conflicted about this decision. I recently received some health information that necessitates me changing a few things including increasing my gym attendance. Our current arrangement allows me to go twice a week while Patrick watches the girls on his lunch break. I didn't think it would be fair to make him do that 5 times/wk. Rachael also only gets to play with kids her own age once a week in the nursery at church.Lately she has been coming home and informing me, "I hit my friends" or "I take toys from my friends." She is so smart and a lot of the time I don't feel like I'm giving her enough enriching activities at home. Most of the time I struggle just trying to clean house, entertain and feed both her and Anna, and not fall into a pity party personally.
Our solution is preschool 3 half-days a week. She gets more interaction, age-appropriate activities, and her teacher will help with toilet training. So why is this a struggle? Because I feel like I should be able to do all that for her myself. I am her mother. Putting her in preschool makes me feel like a failure. It's not as if I had a whole ton of kids. I just have 2. Besides that, it was my job to design fun, learning activities for children that were age-appropriate as well as to help them work on negative behaviors and build positive ones.
I guess the bottom line is, preschool isn't about Rachael, it's about me.And that's not right. I'll be praying for some perspective and maybe a little peace. Sorry this turned into kind of a downer. Guess I needed to let it out.


Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Montana

We went to Georgetown Lake last week for a family camping/reunion extravaganza. Patrick took most of the pictures so there's not a lot to this post. Some random flower/weeds and Rachael swinging. W had fun. Glad to be home.




Summer veggies

So I am proud of my healthy dinner tonight. Besides what you can easily tell, there is eggplant and kohlrabi in it. The latter and the squash came from our garden. Those are turkey meatballs and homemade baked tortilla chips too. Woot.


Saturday, July 23, 2011

Skills

Anna found her thumb. Heaven help us, but it's cute.


Friday, July 8, 2011

Blow Out

So, Anna has a tendency to, ummm, explode out of her diaper (see exhibits A & B from about 2 months ago).

Since this has been an ongoing issue. We decided to switch diaper brands. We were using Huggies. Today was our first day with Pampers. Can we say, DISMAL FAILURE. The one tonight put this one to shame. So consider the following questions:
  • Is there some magic trick to making diapers hold the contents they are made to hold?
  • Is my daughter's bum weird?
  • Is there another brand that might work?
  • Is there any point to trying to contain the mess?

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Grabby Anna

Anna has been working on her grasping skills this week. It seems like last week she couldn't quite reach the rings on her bouncy seat. Today she grabbed the hippo above them. I wish I could learn something new that quickly.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Sounds Like Heaven

Anna laughed for the first time today. Patrick was entertaining her so I could get ready for church. He tickled her and she laughed. She wouldn't do it later for the camera, so believe me when I say there is nothing sweeter than a baby's first laugh.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Summer = Zoo

This year we bought a season pass to the zoo. The girls and I have been 3 times already. Unfortunately, some of the animals aren't back yet from their winter homes, but they've been coming back slowly. Rachael loves the goats in the petting area. She likes the ducks and the monkeys. This last time, she decided to make friends with the peacocks (I'm not sure the feeling was mutual).









Thursday, May 26, 2011

Blessing

Anna Marit was blessed on May 1st. It was beautiful. Not sure why Patrick took a video of a sleeping baby, but we'll share it anyway.

Two Year Old Attitude


Rachael is now an official 2-year-old. We celebrated her birthday the first weekend in May. Lots of family and food for everyone. Rachael really likes the Cat in the Hat show on PBS, so that was our theme. I left the vinyl of the Cat on our front door and she get excited every time we come home and she sees it there.

And no, I did not do the cake. My friend Tara did it for me.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Oh Happy Day

Despite the gloomy forecast, I think spring might actually come. My crocuses told me so.


Tuesday, March 29, 2011

RSV

We have not even made it to Anna's two week birthday and we are now back to the hospital because Anna has RSV. She was struggling to breathe last night and we made the decision to take her to the ER since it was after 11pm rather then wait for the doctor in the morning. Jamie was awake until 4:30am from the ER trip before they were able to get her into a room in the Pediatric ward of the Hospital. Jamie has now had some sleep and Anna is doing better now that she is on Oxygen. Basically all they can do for her is suck out the mucus and give her Oxygen. So now we wait until she gets better.


Monday, March 28, 2011

March Madness

Rachael and Patrick made a snowman today. Rachael had fun tasting the snow. About 3 hours after this all the snow was gone. That is, of course, it was gone until it started snowing again.







First Hair Cut

Ok, so I chickened out. I had Aunt Laura perform the first hair cut. How could I cut off her curls? I survived, and Rachael did really well. I'll do it next time.





Anna's First Bath



Anna liked her first bath. She's actually yawning in the one picture, not crying.