Journal: New Years

TODAY

Out my window: Snowy!  It snowed yesterday morning, and then melted before the kids even got to play out in it.  Then it snowed a bit more yesterday afternoon and now it's snowing again this morning.  The grass still isn't completely covered, so there isn't much, but it's nice never-the-less.  The kids are hoping for a snow-walk with Daddy this afternoon.

Clothing myself in: The usual.  I am so over winter. 

Around the house: Just cleaned the bathrooms.  I updated my calendar for the fridge for the next six months and reworked my daily chores a bit to better fit the current state of our family.  Example: the floors do indeed need scrubbed more often than once a week (daily?).  However, when I scrub them more often than once a week, my expectation for how clean they should be is raised, and then I freak out disproportionally when someone spills something.  If I just scrub them once a week, I am more cool with them not being perfect.  For me, this is progress.

 

The baby: Cute as ever.  He has gone with the flow quite well with all the holiday celebrations and such.  Yesterday he took a 4 hour 45 minute nap.  Now if only he could sleep that long of a stretch during the night...

He got some new (size 9 month) clothes for Christmas, for which I was very grateful.  He was growing out of everything, and Kolbe only had a few winter items in that size.  He looks so cute in his new duds. 

 

The kiddos:  Had a good Christmas, and they too have gone with the flow quite well.  It is so hard though, when they don't eat or sleep as well as usual because we are going going going, then they don't behave as well either.  And it is hard to get mad at them when they misbehave and it is for reasons of poor sleep and poor diet.  Actually, it is quite easy to get mad, but when I am rational I know it is not their fault so that makes it difficult.  Looking forward to a return to normalcy...once we get through birthdays.  ;-)

Gemma got a little Casio Keyboard for Christmas from my parents and we've all been having a lot of fun with it.  I had a similar one as a child and remember using it a lot.  I think she will enjoy this one for years.  This one is lightweight and runs on batteries (several AA...we've been going a week and they still haven't run out so I suppose I'm impressed) so it is very portable  It has lots of demo songs, different rhythms and instruments so it really does a lot.  In fact, I have been listening to the same drum beat for the past 10-15 minutes now.  It is Gemma's new "favorite song".  Yay.  

Kolbe got some new Thomas items that he has been very excited about.  He likes Thomas so much.  It's funny, because we've just watched a very few DVDs from the library and checked out a couple books about Thomas, but gosh is that boy over-the-moon for anything Thomas related.  It is very cute. 

In the kitchen:  I made a pizza last night (this crust in the breadmaker with about half white half WW).  I used to make homemade pizza once a week, and I couldn't tell you how long it had been since our last pizza.  Months.  Tonight we are baking one of those pre-smoked turkies and I'm making a potato casserole to go along with it.  We will probably steam some Normandy Blend as well.  Hubby picked up some gorgeous looking looking grape tomatoes at the store and that inspired me to make chicken linguine, tomorrow I think.  Probably Chile Rellenos on Friday, and some good turkey leftovers in between. 

Crafting:  Kolbe got some wooden blocks and trucks for Christmas so I made a drawstring bag to store them in with some leftover flannel from this project (top picture).  I'm always thrilled about projects I can do with stuff already around the house.  I really liked that print too, so it will be nice to see it on a regular basis. 

Learning:  Ah, I am looking forward to getting back to some regular learning activities during our afternoon quiet time.  We are working on thank-you notes now, and when we finish those I plan on jumping back in with handwriting lessons and some numbers work. 

Reading: I received Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives in a white elephant gift exchange (apparently it pays to have an uncle who is a Dominican priest), and I'm looking forward to starting it.  I am about 4 days behind on my daily Catechism readings for the Year of Faith, so I need to catch up with that as well.  

Bringing me joy: How much Gemma loves her great-grandma.  Going to Mass (alone).  Snow.  My sweet family, even on the crazy days, and especially my husband. 

Thinking about: Cutting my hair again.  Not super-short like when I regretted it, but shorter.  Long enough for a pony, but short enough that it is simpler (faster) to style in the morning, and doesn't get so tangly during the day if/when I wear it down.  I don't know, it just feels so "blah" lately.  I blame it on winter.  This whole January/February time of year is not my favorite.  I am ready for spring.  Sigh. 

Pictures to share: 

The family on Christmas, before Mass.

Kolbe, sharing some protein shake with his new Thomas (still in the package) on Christmas morning.  He got it on Christmas eve and was so patient, we didn't open it until after Mass on Christmas day.

 Handsome Clem in his new clothes...can't believe he's almost 6 months!!!

Gemma with one of her many drawings.

Gemma with her great Uncle Father Andrew, O.P.

Gemma's drawings

I love her pictures.  She has gotten quite detailed recently, her latest additions being bodies, eyebrows and ears.  And sometimes toes.

Ohhh Gemma...

I think I've used that title for at least one previous post.  My alternate title was "It's a boy"... but I didn't want to give anyone the wrong impression about the topic of this post. But you'll see why that was definitely a close second.  

Gemma loves to draw.  Her latest thing is making small pictures on these little card-stock cards I found at Tuesday Morning, folding them up, putting them in an envelope, writing someone's name (usually hers or Kolbe's or some relative or friend) on front and then putting them in the "mailbox" (a drawer in the living room or the top of the cedar chest in our room) and then gleefully "getting the mail" or delivering them to their intended recipient.  Usually I don't look at the pictures she draws, I just let her have at it.  I think I may start having to look over her pictures though, especially the ones she gives away.

The other night she brought me this one and very proudly said, "look mommy, it's a boy!"

Yep. It's definitely a boy.  Ooooohhhhhhhhh Gemma...  I asked her who it was for and she looked at me as if I were from Planet Idiot and said very matter-of-factly, "it's for a boy."  Of course.

The Ascension

Often when we pray our morning decade of the Rosary, Gemma draws on her magnadoodle while we pray. She talks about how she is drawing the mystery we're praying, and I think that is a cool way for her to identify with what we're doing. I am so happy to see her learning the mysteries of the Rosary, which essentially walk through Christ's life from the time his birth was announced until his blessed mother was assumed into heaven. Gemma keeps track of which mystery we're ready for and usually finds the page in the book each morning before I do. It makes my heart happy to see her growing in a love for her faith and developing a relationship with Jesus. ANYways, yesterday we were praying the second glorious mystery, the Ascension, and I just had to take a picture of what she drew. I know we don't need to call Mensa over this or anything (haha), but I was still pretty impressed.
Here's the picture at which we were looking:
And here is what she drew:
Okay, maybe I'm just a silly mom who is seeing more than what's really there, but it looks to me like a big head/body with eyes, arms, leg-ish looking things and some other sort of squiggle on the side. At any rate, I was pretty proud of the picture and am glad I snapped a photo before she erased it (GAH, magnadoodles!)

Happy weekend everyone!

Gemma around the house

I decided I needed to do a Gemma post, just to update on some of the things she's been up to. I will number them, because it helps my brain feel more organized that way. And heaven knows it's all about me. (haha, joking, for anyone who may be new around here and not used to me ;-D)

1. Playtime. She is getting really into independent play, and can keep herself entertained with minimal help from me all morning sometimes. Sometimes not (and that's fine too, we enjoy playing and reading together). But some days she just does great and that makes for good productive mornings for both of us. Her favorite thing is playing with her brown bear, bunny and baby. They do three things: eat, take naps and take baths. Time and time again. She uses a mixture of her things and my/Kolbe's things and it is just so cute to watch her little imagination at work. "Baby" seems to be at about the same developmental level as Kolbe currently. Funny. Here are some pictures of what she does. I just think it's so cute.
2. Drawing. She doesn't draw much, but once in awhile with either her magnadoodle or markers... or my pen. (which is apparently a super-cool thing to do. Now you know.) But she always draws the same thing. A bunch of circles with little dots in them. Every time. I am sure there is some deep psychological reason for why she does this, but I just think it's cute.
3. Eating. So she's never been terribly good at this, but that's nothing new. Some days are better than others. We roll with it. She seems to be maintaining/gaining weight and following a growth curve, and what she does eat is reasonably healthy so it works. Now that Koble is using the highchair she has decided that she likes to use it again sometimes too. As long as he doesn't need it at the time that's fine with me. I think she looks like a giant in it. And yes, for the record, she is dipping her quesadilla in ketchup. And the bib? All her request. Silly girl!
4. Beads. She built a "cage" for her fish. She loves these beads (they were mine as a child) and always uses them to build cages for things. Besides baby, et al, they are the other toy that typically comes out every day. I have taken a pretty minimalistic approach when it comes to toys, and I really like it that way (and the kids don't seem to mind either). It works.
5. Prayer time. She is very diligent about this and will even remind me when it's time for prayers, or just announce that it's prayer time and start getting our things out. I like that it is becoming habit. We finally got Kolbe his own Rosary (um, chew-toy) so he would quit trying to grab ours. She's done pretty well at letting him have it too, which kind of surprised me.
6. Helper. She continues to be a great help to me. I asked her to get diapers out of the dryer the other day and then kind of forgot about it. I stumbled over the laundry basket a few hours later to find that she had stacked them up in a neat little pile, all even and tidy. No idea where she gets it.
7. Singing/Music. No pics. Sorry! And no video either. I know, I know... Still in love with her Nursery Rhymes, but she has started doing this funny thing where instead of the regular words she will randomly substitute Kolbe's name. It is odd. But cute. We have split her music CD's into playtime and sleepytime music. "This Old Man" or "Mulberry Bush" screeching over and over on loop all night was just getting to be too much (for me, and I'm guessing for her too although she'd never admit it). She's doing fine with it though. Our favorite nighttime CD's are Sleep Sound in Jesus and Twila Paris' Lullabies. If you're looking for more good sleepy-time music, A Child's Gift of Lullabies and Jim Brickman's Hope have been other favorites at our house.

8. Little Bear. We have several of these books from when I was a child, and have checked out several more from the library. She really likes these books and stories a lot. The other night DH and I were searching for something on the DVR and saw "Little Bear" so we curiously checked it out (it was part of the free OnDemand that we apparently get) and it was indeed little bear. THE Little Bear. There were a handful of 25 minute episodes of Little Bear, each containing four short stories (just as the books do). We really don't do any regular TV with Gemma (besides her and her daddy watching random clips of "funnies" (America's Funniest Home Videos) together for 5-10 minutes some evenings). We've showed her a few of the Little Bear episodes though, and she definitely thought they were pretty neat (as in, they held her attention and she talked about them later). They are well done in my opinion, and I don't mind letting her watch them occasionally. It's nice to know that they are available on the DVR.

9. Library. We have been making weekly trips to the library for awhile now. The girl loves her some books and we have found the library to just be such a treasure. I love being able to search their catalog online and request specific books (for instance, we have lots of Autumn/pumpkin/apple themed books coming up soon). And she enjoys the diversity. Currently in our baskets/on our end-tables are anything Seuss, various Nursery Rhyme books and this sweet legend by Tomie dePaola. I recently requested a new book from Sophia entitled The Temperament God Gave You and I am really looking forward to it. It discusses the four personality types from a Catholic standpoint. My husband and I talk often about personalities. I think that if more people had a better understanding of their own and others' personalities, we'd all get along better. But I digress. And this is getting super long.

Thanks for hanging with us! Now you are current on all things GEMMA!