Our beloved Goldie the fish died today. Gemma and I are both very sad. I told Gemma before her nap today that Goldie died and when she woke up he would be all gone. She seemed to understand, as much as a one-and-a-half year old can. She told him "bye-bye" and gave him loves one last time, and then as she was getting ready for her nap she kept saying "Goldie died, fishy all-gone." It was sad and sweet. After I put her down Aaron and I laid Goldie to rest in the pond behind the house. I thought it was a nice place to put him. We will miss him, but look forward to getting another fishy for our countertop. Here are some recent pictures of Gemma with Goldie. She absolutely LOVED sitting on the cabinet and "interacting" with him. She would go over there 10 or more times a day and say to me, "fishy hi", which meant, "please pick me up on the cabinet so I can talk to Goldie." And then inevitably she would say, "fishy eat". If it were up to her he would have also eaten 10 times a day!! She will definitely enjoy having a "nunner" fish.
"Fishy kiss"
Gemma with Goldie yesterday when he was sick. She kept saying, "fishy fall down," because he was at the bottom of the aquarium. It was so sweet.
Farewell, Goldie. We will miss you.
So, for all of you faithful followers out there, I have a NEWSFLASH regarding Farmer. (For those who may be confused, read this).So, I was innocently making the bed this morning. Now, mind you, I make the bed every day, so this is nothing unusual. Mind you I have also washed our sheets probably no less than 4-5 times since said farmer incident. And if you will remember, the National Guard was even said to be over here helping search for farmer back in days of yore. That little dude was well hunted. And thus he was proclaimed gone. Thrown away or flushed (even though suspected daughter never does either of these things). He was no more. I mean, heck, he had a replacement even. Not an exact replica, but a darn good replacement. It was meant to be. And all was well. Until this morning. I digress. So there I was, making the bed. Sweet Gemma went into the other room to get the pillow for me as she always does (Aaron and I use it on the couch in the evenings when we watch TV). She was standing by me and I asked her to hand me the pillow. She did. And then she said, get ready for it, "Oh, it's Farmer Dell." (Now she calls him Farmer Dell, because I taught her the song "The Farmer in the Dell".) Anyways, I was like, oh you brought...FARMER?!!?!?!!!??!?!?!?!!!! And low and behold, I look down and in my sweet innocent daughter's hands is farmer. THE farmer. NOT the replacement farmer (I promptly checked), but farmer farmer. He returned. And doggone, as much as Gemma understands and communicates, she just looked at me like she had no clue what I was talking about when I asked where on earth she found him. And asked her again, and maybe even a third or hundredth time.So, the mystery remains, and probably will forever. This may be looked back upon as the eighth wonder of the world, or maybe our room is just some kind of crazy twilight-zone black-hole (sometimes the light turns on by itself). At any rate, as the dear and beloved late Paul Harvey would say, "now you know, the rest of the story." And for those of you still doubting the reality of this event...pictorial proof.This morning after the "big find".
This afternoon after her nap she finally discovered there were two of them. "Whoa," she said, "it's farmer and nunner (another) farmer!"
And so goes our day...
Here's baby and me, a bit more than 5 months (23ish weeks) along. The wee-tiny munchkin seems to be growing well and is definitely a mover. Such a comforting and nice feeling. I am blest.
More later, I'm off to do some sewing whilst the Gemma-goo naps.
Yup. This is how we roll.
Later on that same morning, lost in her own little book-world. LOVE it!!!
Gemma loves reading and having books read to her. She has a handful of "favorites", one of which being Are You My Mother by P.D. Eastman. Lately, she's gotten to where we can leave out words and she will fill in the blank with just about any given book. She really does a great job at it. Most of the time.Last night I was reading her this particular story at bedtime. Usually daddy reads it (it's their special book), and he does a much better job, but daddy wasn't around and she wanted "Monner" (as she calls it), so I obliged. Well, she was doing a fine job at filling in the words as I read along and paused. We got to this particular page where the bulldozer picks the baby bird up. TYPICALLY we say, "The big thing said..." and Gemma finishes up by saying "snoooooope" (Gemma-ese for "snort").
Well, last night I was innocently reading along, and I got to this page and, just as usual, I said, "The big thing said....", and Gemma, without missing a beat exclaims, "is that POOP?" Well, I about busted a gut and I think I laughed for two or three minutes straight before I could keep reading. She just looked at me like, What? What did I say? I just asked a question? And in fairness to her, we have been talking about poop a lot lately. Gemma, for the past month-and-a-half or so, has been going poopy on the potty. And in about the past two weeks she has started telling me when she has to go rather than me watching for it. (The whole potty thing is still lost on her, but we'll get there). Anyways, so there's lots of celebrating around here when it comes to poop. That and when we go for walks she has been noticing the plentiful goose-poop around the ponds and asking about it, so I simply tell her, "it's poop." I mean, hey, it is. Anyways, I guess she thought it looked like the bulldozer was scooping poop. Whatever the case, it was good for a quite lengthy laugh, so thought I would share.That's all for this post. I have more updates, but really, how do you follow that?!
YESSSSSSSS!!!!!! I am finished with the newborn size diapers for baby. Yes, I realize 8 dipes is only about a day's worth. I also plan on using some prefolds from this site plus some contours like I use for Gemma. I just didn't want to sink too much time into the NB size, not knowing for how long they'll fit baby and all. Now onto the smalls. The first group of smalls I make will be for some friends with babies on the way, and after that we'll see how many I finish for our wee-one. Thanks for checking in!
Here's Gemma's 20-month picture. Only I forgot on the 11th, so after I cried and debated about waking her after I put her to bed (yeah, I was bummed but vetoed that one real quick) I just took it the next morning. So technically she's 20 months and 1 day in the photo.
And this was taken a few days later. I thought her little outfit (a hodge-podge of dress, leggings and shoes I threw together) was really cute and "fallish" looking. So there you have it!
Since she doesn't yet have siblings (well, ones that live where she can interact with them) yet, Gemma has become quite good friends with many of the inanimate objects around our home. She likes for these "friends" to share in the same privileges and such that she gets. Observe.As I was walking through the family room the other day, I saw this. Gemma likes to smell the candle, and we've been working on "smell with your nose, not with your hands." Apparently bunny likes to smell the candle too. Notice, he is smelling with his nose, and certainly not with his hands!
After chuckling and taking a picture, I turned around and saw this.
And yes, I am quite sure she didn't just decide to set her water here, as I have observed her giving scarecrow "drinks" before.***EDITED TO ADD***I realize I put this one on here several months back, but it really was too fitting not to include with this post. No caption needed, the picture really speaks for itself.
And lastly, if Gemma is going to eat "yaunch", then by gosh so are Brown Bear and Bunny, at the family table no less.
Yes, Gemma-goo is very good to her friends. Very good indeed.
We have been working on cleaning items out of our upstairs freezer that have been there awhile. We came across some crapi we had caught over 2 years ago. Thank goodness it was frozen in a block of ice, so it was still good. Anyways, my hubby thought this recipe up a few years ago when trying to think of something healthier than just your usual fried fish. We did it with crapi, but it will work well with any white fish (tilapia, walleye, etc.).FISH CRISPUse 1-2 lbs of fish fillets. Make sure they are thawed and dried (press with a paper towel) so there's not lots of excess moisture. Put them in a 9x9 or 9x13 (depending on how much you make) pan. Squeeze half a lemon on top and/or sprinkle with some lemon pepper.In a mixing bowl, mix a box of cornbread stuffing, some olive oil, and some Vidalia Onion Vinigarette dressing (or another dressing or seasonings of your choice). Just enough of the wet ingredients to make the whole mixture moist.Pour mixture on top of fish and bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes. This is another recipe that you can mix up in advance and stick in the fridge until you're ready to bake. My favorite kind!!ENJOY!
We had a nice weekend last week. It was wonderful having Aaron off work for an extra day!!! Those days are just too few and far between. We got some more projects done around the house, including hanging our wrought-iron wall art and sconces above the stairs. YAY!!!!!! Pictures and a post about that to come once we get the valances hung in Gemma's big-girl room.Aaron's bro Adam was in town for the weekend, so we got together with the family on Sunday. It was a really nice time. The guys smoked some meat and the weather was just absolutely perfect. We spent the majority of the late-afternoon and evening outdoors.This was Gemma's first attempt at t-ball. She really had fun with it, although no matter how many times we tried to convince her to hold the bat the other way, she was dead-set on doing it this way. It was cute. She was very proud whenever the bat (handle) made contact with the ball, and got very excited.
She was also excited by the contents of this bucket...BABY TURTLES!!! John, my bro-in-law, had found some turtle eggs in their sandbox early this summer and buried them and left them. Well, he decided to dig them up on Sunday and they just happened to be hatching. It was so cool. Fourteen baby turtles. I didn't let Gemma touch them, normally I don't care about things like that, if she gets dirty she can wash her hands... but turtles can carry salmonella, and that just made me a little uneasy. I didn't touch them either.
So, as I said, it was a really fun weekend, and kind of a bummer when it was over. But, we have had a very nice week around here for the most part, so all is well! Thanks for checking in.
Gemma was playing back in her room this morning, and I noticed it had been fairly quiet for quite awhile, so I figured I better go check things out and see what she was up to. As I made my way down the hallway I heard her little voice "reading" clips from one of her books. When I got back there, I was greeted with this sight. Yep, she'd read every one of her books. All by herself. My heart just melted at the sight. I'm so glad my daughter shares my love for books! 
Our beloved Goldie the fish died today. Gemma and I are both very sad. I told Gemma before her nap today that Goldie died and when she woke up he would be all gone. She seemed to understand, as much as a one-and-a-half year old can. She told him "bye-bye" and gave him loves one last time, and then as she was getting ready for her nap she kept saying "Goldie died, fishy all-gone." It was sad and sweet. After I put her down Aaron and I laid Goldie to rest in the pond behind the house. I thought it was a nice place to put him. We will miss him, but look forward to getting another fishy for our countertop. Here are some recent pictures of Gemma with Goldie. She absolutely LOVED sitting on the cabinet and "interacting" with him. She would go over there 10 or more times a day and say to me, "fishy hi", which meant, "please pick me up on the cabinet so I can talk to Goldie." And then inevitably she would say, "fishy eat". If it were up to her he would have also eaten 10 times a day!! She will definitely enjoy having a "nunner" fish.
"Fishy kiss"
Gemma with Goldie yesterday when he was sick. She kept saying, "fishy fall down," because he was at the bottom of the aquarium. It was so sweet.
Farewell, Goldie. We will miss you.
