Verbally Challenged

I just realized that I haven’t done an Addy update oh in….forever. And because these updates are more for me than anything I figured I’d better do one. I’m already kicking myself for waiting so long and my pregnancy brain isn’t getting any better!

So Miss Princess Addy:

She’s 21 months…honestly…21 months. I have no more tears left to cry, the first day of school for L-man really did me in. At 21 months:
*Miss petite thing is still only in the 20 pound category (yes that’s the 1%). Liam was the SAME way (and heck he’s still a pencil)
*Has been using the potty for a few weeks now. She asks…it’s crazy. Liam was THREE! I don’t push things around here so it may be another couple of years before she’s fully trained. It’s WAY too early if you ask me!
*Talks almost as much as her brother (and believe me that’s saying A LOT)! I can’t even begin to list the words but she can label just about everything and string three words together. She still signs too while speaking and that is adorable!
*She still loves reading and is starting to read the books to us – so cute.
*Knows how to count to seven but often leaves out five.
*Can identify six letters so far: A, E, O, F, H and T
*Loves puzzles, books, magnadoodle, wooden stackers, babydolls (with stroller and carseat), play kitchen (the dishes mainly), and a little wooden dollhouse.
*She loves wearing “bows” and will request them (I’m NOT complaining)
*She still adores animals…all animals.
*Still does not like television at all…unless there is an animal on the screen.
*Is still VERY mellow and easy (this will come back to bite me in the butt someday). She hangs close to me and doesn’t wander.
*She calls me “mummy” and sounds very English when she does. I love it!
*Daddy is now “Daddy” instead of “Dada” which now means “dolly”
*Liam is called “miam” – it’s totally adorable
*She loves eating and tries everything. Breakfast, lunch and dinner is no longer my own.

I may add more but for now, that’s all! We’re headed up to the lake again this weekend so be back in a few days!

Here one more photo for the road (not perfect but still cute):

For those of you non-mind reader’s – that stands for “A Very Good Liam Day.” That was yesterday and I was one proud mama. It was his first day of school and while I could tell the night before that he was nervous, it didn’t show in the morning. He was excited about wearing his new slippers (they need them in the classroom), looking forward to his surprise lunch (compliments of one caring mommy) and seeing his friends that he only got to see a few times over the summer. It was a surprisingly low key morning which believe me is NOT the norm in K-town. I was on the ball with the lunch packed, clothes out, special breakfast (hide-n-seek muffins) prepared which again believe me is NOT the norm in K-town. But it was a lovely morning.

After a few photos, Nate whisked Liam off to school leaving me with a very curious toddler (miam?, miam?, maim? X 1000) and an oddly quiet house. And I was sad. I KNOW that school is good for him. And I KNOW that he likes to see his friends. I KNOW that he gains confidence. But does it have to be EVERY DAY? And then I start thinking that it’s Kindergarten – it’s the big leagues and he’ll now have school EVERY DAY (in some form) for a LOOOOOOOOONG time. It just seems so final and he’s still so small. Sigh.

But here is my brave boy:

I felt bad that he didn’t have a shiny new lunchbox for school this year but he didn’t seem to care. That’s his old laptop lunchbox from last year. I love that it’s environmentally friendly and fun for the kids to look at. The colors and modular design make eating fun and believe me, with my string bean of a child I need all the help that I can get!

And after school he was all smiles. Proud of himself for “being so brave,” and for “eating all of his lunch” (which is a Christmas miracle), and for doing some “great work.” He was happy to eat with his friends, and learn new songs. And he was excited to learn that “all-days” get certain “pri-bel-idges” like taking French and music (oh-la-la) and that’ll be so cool. And thrilled that only the all-days get their own pencil box with colored pencils, lead pencils, white erasers and a pencil sharpener (each one of them) – how could it get any better?

He shared his work when he got home from school and I was happy to see that he focused. He drew a photo of himself on a name page and informed me that he told his friend (who happened to be a girl) that she should draw a photo of him on HER page because “he’s so handsome and it would look good.” Where does he get this stuff?

I think that the best part of the story is that he’s excited to go back. THAT is key and it sounds like the teachers have done their job right. Let’s hope for a great year!!!

This is actually an apology to my googlehead friends who have been blocked for some time from my blog (not that you’re missing out on much but still). Apparently some web nerds wrote a virus program that was infecting some wordpress blogs and unfortunately I was hit. After lots of research and a more than patient husband (thank goodness SOMEONE in this house is mellow and patient), I’m virus free and not spewing warnings to my readers (mostly those using google reader). So that’s that!

And because folks have been asking me, I STILL can’t seem to access my last twenty photos taken over the weekend and unfortunately, they were my sewing projects. I’m still trying though. I’m have more time to do it now. I wanted to get our cottage photos edited and ordered – DONE! Here is another one from the weekend:

I love that it’s not posed…Liam doesn’t pose well at the current moment. Heck, Liam doesn’t really stand still at the current moment. And I love little Adeline in the background.

And that’s all for now! I’ll be back later to talk about the first day of school…TODAY…and how I spent the morning crying and missing my boy. And how Addy asked for Liam no less than 73 times. And probably a few photos taken before school – you know – the here’s your lunch box hold it up and smile photo. We all have them. So that’s later! Enjoy!

So we’re back from the cottage and I have to say that we had an awesome weekend. The weather more than cooperated and the kids had a record fun day at the beach. Usually they poop out a little early and insist on having snacks. Which leads me to ask if I’m the only parent who can’t stand the word “snack.” I swear that I hear it fifty times a day. Like after the last bite of food has been eaten on the dinner plate, “can I have a snack?” Or one foot steps out of the bathtub, “can I have a snack?” Or he finishes his snack, “can I have a snack?” And one little mention of the word snack gets the little miss running around begging for one too. And believe it or not, the kids don’t get a lot of snacks. Maybe that’s my problem. Wow…I’m off topic here eh?

So back to the lake. I’ve think that I’ve mentioned this before – we have no television or Internet which is normal for some folks. But our house is geek-land and folks we have it all. His and hers laptops, wireless, satellite – technology. And honestly, it gets in the way of life sometimes. I’m really liking the break from it all when we go to the lake. I’m really productive there too!

This weekend was all about getting things situated. We’ve spent the summer deciding what we want to do – and how we could do things cost effectively. We inherited all of the furniture with the cottage when we bought it and that’s not necessarily a good thing. For example, we got a lovely powder blue worn out sofa with cushions along the back that had a “hotel” print on them. Think mauve, green, blue swirly patterns. So not us – nor did it speak cute cottage. But the sofa is a sleeper and not something that we wanted to replace. The solution, slipcovers on the cushions with super cute fabric. DONE as of this weekend. Photos coming soon once my computer cooperates. On the couch, throw pillows with more super cute fabric. DONE! My fingers are aching from all of the slip-stitching! One last sewing project, a new little curtain for the kitchen. Again, photos coming soon. My computer is being selective in what images it wants to import. Hopefully tomorrow. I will say that it’s getting pretty cute and feels more like a cottage. We’ve tried not to modernize it too much since it wouldn’t feel right – but for us modern folk – that’s hard!

Next on my list, photos to order for the walls. But again, they need to feel right. I’ve been working on some processing and think that I’ve finally found my workflow. This is one shot of Liam from the weekend with some processing and texture added. I know that it’s not my norm but fits the cottage style…at least for now!

More later!

We’re heading off to the lake for the weekend here shortly. I’m taking my sewing machine and lots of fabric that finally came. Hopefully I’ll be able to cute it up and share some photos when we get back!

In the meantime – here is a layout that I did for fun – go me!

And two sweet photos of my little gal. We were playing outside yesterday (liam was off bouncing on his ball and playing who knows what…far away from my camera) and I got two super cute (obviously to me) photos.

More later! Have a FAB weekend!

Tonight we’ll have a special visitor come to the house:

The loose, hanging by a thread, tooth finally came out early this morning. Liam came rushing into our room early this morning at top speed making the announcement. He was SO proud of himself for putting it into the tooth holder already but later lost it after pulling it out to show us…again. Fortunately, we found the tiny thing and it’s ready to go for the fairy tonight.

I thought that once the tooth fell out he’d look different – more grown up – but he doesn’t. I’m thinking that’ll happen with the top front teeth. These two on the bottom have teeth literally pushing them out so he has a stub of a tooth already in there – it’s almost like a tooth swap. So I’m dealing with it nicely and can continue on with my denial (he’s never growing up). That’s healthy…right?

More later!

With this post I know that my more…ahem…natural side will shine through. In fact I’ll confess that I am a co-sleeping (well not so much anymore), baby wearing, extended breastfeeding, baby food making, cloth diapering, vegetarian mama. All are choices that we made so I’m not ashamed.

The cloth diapering is something that we started a couple of months ago. I was cloth diapered as a baby with the (gasp) prefolds and safety pins which I’m sure my young parents poked me with on more than one occasion. And unfortunately, I didn’t educate myself early enough in the area to know better – or realize that cloth diapers today are TOTALLY different and don’t have to be prefolds (which in reality aren’t all that bad either), difficult or gross. Now that we’re doing it, I love it. We even have a sprayer that attached to our toilet to clean them up a bit before going into the diaper pail (if they’re soiled) and the day it was hooked up (by my hubby I might add) – I was giddy with excitement – over a diaper sprayer! Oh how the times have changed.

Warning: Inserting technical cloth diapering jargon
So now that I’m up and running with cloth diapers, I know what works for us with a toddler. I don’t have experience with a newborn and that’s where I’m asking for help. I’ve heard prefolds with snappi’s and covers work well but you can still get frequent blow-outs. I’ve also read that kissaluvs are good with thirsties covers. I’m curious to know if any of my readers cloth diaper and if you do – what worked well for your babies? I’d LOVE any info that I can get! Comments or emails would work beautifully and I’d really appreciate it!

I’m off to go and hug a tree!

For the sixth year in a row! It’s such a fun show to go to – parents and kids everywhere – being silly, singing and dancing.

This is actually the first year where Liam really wasn’t into them on TV so we weren’t sure how excited he was going to be at the show. But it turned out to be his best year at the show participation wise. He was singing, dancing, waving…having a REALLY good time. And that made mom and dad smile – A LOT!

This shot was taken mid-cockadoodle-doo during one of the songs…so funny:

The little Miss had a fab time too. She hung out on dads lap the entire time – also dancing and waving at the characters. I say it again, she is such a good and VERY mellow gal!

And show was super cute as always. Unfortunately cameras with lenses longer than 3″ were not permitted so I used my 50mm (less than ideal) so that I wouldn’t have to be without a camera at all. The photos turned out ok…a bit grainy…but without a flash not too bad.

And that was the wiggly concert!

And one quick note to readers who use google – you may have got an error/warning over the past day or two while trying to read my blog. There was a wordpress issue with some blogs and I think it’s all taken care of. Sorry!!!

More later!

Now THAT’S an attractive post header eh?

Making a little more sense?

This is what I have been up to lately in the creativity department. It’s not layouts (this week) but instead, hair accessories. I’m officially the mom of a little gal! And my little gal just got a bunch of new clothing items and needed hair accessories to match (because imagine the horror if they didn’t) – so I made some! I made a lot actually and these are just a few that I’m showing. In fact, I made some extra and sent them off to folks I know with little gals so some of my readers may get a little surprise in the mail (commenting helps since I get to know you…hint hint) – hope you enjoy them!

My model (old dress, new bow):

And my boy. Sigh. My boy. Last week while eating corn he ran at top speed into the bathroom. Two minutes later he ran back into the kitchen at top speed announcing that his teeth felt funny. So I did what any mom would do, take a look, give a wiggle and discover the little dude has not ONE but TWO loose teeth on the bottom. AND two new ones coming in. I had no idea. He’s only five and I thought that I had another year to prepare! The news was hard on him at first, and scary but now he shows anyone and everyone that he sees, strangers included. And me, I get to see AND hear about at least 27 times a day. I’m at peace with the whole thing….I think.

So any day now those two cute buggers on the bottom are going to fall out and he’ll start going through the awkward phase. We all had that phase. The one where we’re an odd mixture of young and old – mine was NOT pretty! WHERE is my little boy anyway?

Mama bird, that’s me. Taking care of the nest and the babies inside. Feeding, nurturing, teaching – all while they complain for more! More food, more lessons, more love…but that’s ok. That’s what mama’s do.

When we designed Adeline’s nursery less than two years ago I had an artist come in (the same gal that did Liam’s safari murals) and paint the cherry blossoms – if you’ve been reading me for a while you’ll remember the journey. The bedding has cherries so the cherry blossom branches tied into that. And in those branches I wanted four birds representing the four members of our family. Dad was flying back to the nest (or out for food) while mom stayed close by watching over the babies. I love the story that the room tells, even if folks don’t get it right away (I’ll admit it’s not traditional).

But it’s me…it’s us.

And now I’ve been scouring the internet trying to find a decal – a nest with a bird, or another bird that’ll fit into our decor…or perhaps I’ll have the same artist come back for really quick visit.

I have a few months to decide.