Journal: Getting back in the swing of things

TODAY

Out my window: Dark.  Warmer this week.  Makes me happy, the kids can play outside in the afternoon which helps immensely in the sanity department around here.

Clothing myself in: Jammies.

Around the house:  Took the tree down last night.  I was happy to see it go, real-estate is prime in the living room and it was starting to feel a bit crowded.  Still have the Nativity and other winter decos up for the next month or so, probably until Lent (it's so EARLY this year!!)  The kids are a little sad Christmas is "over".  Kolbe kept running over to the corner where the tree was and saying, "Oh, Christmas o-der mommy."  

 

The baby: Likes to nurse every 5 minutes during the night.  OK, maybe not quite that frequently but sometimes it seems like it. 

 

The kiddos:  Gemma has been very into making books lately.  She cuts a piece of paper into quarters and draws things, and asks me how to spell words and then we staple them altogether and read them.  Recently she has made a bug book (to identify various bugs), a Jesus book (to tell the poor people at the park who don't know about Jesus about Him...her words), and a book entitled "Max and Ruby's Firecrackers" that she wrote especially for Kolbe.  It is very cute.

Kolbe, oh my this child likes to help me.  I was going to do a special blog post all about it, but this once a week blogging thing has been a good fit lately so I'll just talk about it here.  Goodness, it doesn't matter what he is doing...playing with toys, watching a show...if he sees me doing chores he is right by my side saying, "help too, help too."  Cooking, laundry, sweeping, vacuuming, dishes, dusting, you name it.  The boy loves to help.  It is sweet and I try so hard to be patient with him.  I know some day it will not be so easy to get willing and eager help.

In the kitchen:  Chili, Chicken Enchiladas, Shepherd's Pie, Smoked Beef and Salmon.  Some Quinoa/Kale salad and sweet potatoes prepared somehow (suggestions?) for side dishes.  I will let Gemma help me plan Friday's dinner as it is her birthday.  I made some homemade cinnamon rolls last Friday to celebrate the Feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.

Crafting:  Does making cinnamon rolls count?  The kids and I made this together (they painted, I did the hot gluing).  It turned out really cool.

Learning:  We're going through Little Acts of Grace during our morning prayer time here the next few weeks.  Am hoping to pick up Book 2 for Gemma's Baptism Anniversary, we've sure enjoyed the first one.  Did a reading lesson today, I was pleased with how well Gemma did, it had been awhile.  Jumped back in to handwriting lessons today as well, and have plans to work on counting/numbers/counting by tens this week with both kids.

Reading: Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, slowly making my way through it.  Keeping up with my daily Catechism readings (or trying to).  Got Adam and Eve After the Pill from Inter-library loan.  Looks interesting.  On the Banks of Plum Creek with the kids.

Bringing me joy: Spending the afternoon at Academy Sports wandering around with the family.  We had so much fun.  Time with the hubby and kids all of us together, I treasure it so much.  Running into people I know.  Taking the Christmas tree down (much as I love it, I was ready to see it go).  Reading with the kids.  Kolbe talking.  Time one-on-one with Gemma.  Reading about Mother Teresa in a magazine from Church.  Getting ready for the kids' birthdays.

Thinking about: Spending less (ideally not any) time on the computer when the kids are awake.  Our days go so much better when I keep the laptop off the kitchen table and give the kids my attention.  Upcoming birthdays, can't believe Miss Gemma will be 5, wow.  Starting to think about Lent plans and what I/we want to do with the kids/as a family/individually. 

Pictures to share: 

Gemma in her "cat hat".  She needed a new stocking cap, and Daddy had seen these at Penney's. Got it on clearance even and it's prefect for her!

My helper, so proud.

Clem's new ride.  Anyone picked up the teething strap-covers that go with this and are they worth having?  As you can see, he sure drools (and occasionally spits up on it) a lot.

Laundry day

Gemma and Kolbe have started "helping" with their laundry on laundry day.  I'm not sure how this got started, but usually when I do their wash Gemma will bring out the stepstool and Kolbe will sit on the floor and hand the laundry up to her to throw it in the washer.  It's very cute...and actually helpful, even if it does take them 20 minutes to load the washer!!

Dishwasher helper

Gemma loves being a helper. I like seeing her help, even if it isn't always necessarily "helpful". ;-D I know she's learning good lessons. This day she decided unload the dishwasher. By herself. During the middle of lunch. How could I tell her no? She was so eager to help. I love the way she "organized" everything, it made me chuckle. My sweet, OCD little girl.

Kolbe - 12 months

My little guy is a year old now. It's weird, Gemma seemed like such a big girl at a year, yet Kolbe still seems like a baby to me. Maybe it's just my perspective. But anyways, he is growing up for sure. Kolbe has learned how to clap and can (sort of) hold a sippy cup. He points at things and gets very excited when he sees something he wants or likes. He loves baths and as soon as we get him out of his highchair after dinner he crawls right to the bathroom. He waves goodbye (to people, and to his food when he throws it on the floor from his highchair tray. yeah.) and is starting to pull up onto his feet (infrequently). He is learning how to really play with toys more (instead of just trying to chew on them) and loves to throw a ball. He's starting to interact more with big sis which is exciting and fun for both of them.Sleep has been rather rough lately (a cold? teething?). He seems to be ready to drop the morning nap, but his afternoon naps haven't been so hot (unless he's snuggled up in the mei tai) and we've had some rough nights. He's tried most every food and is still a fairly good eater. He typically nurses at least 3-4 times during the day (seems to be more-so now with the teething) and on and off overnight. He likes to sleep with us most of the night. He is a very happy little guy and is definitely all boy. God has sure blessed us over this past year. Happy first birthday, Kolbe boy. We love you!!!

And now for some pics from the past month:
Being a "helper" Standing up...typical Kolbe face YAY Kolbe (clapping) He loves carrying toys (or socks) around in his mouth. He looks like a little puppy-dog (which is what Gemma often calls him. She is "cat" and he is "puppy-dog". But that's a whole other post). Throwing his ball
Standing up
Obligatory couch pic
With mommy and daddy with his first birthday cake

Gemma the helper

Gemma likes to be a little helper, especially with her bubby-brother. Here he is going for the Christmas tree (imagine!). The hand you can see is Gemma's. "I'll grab his leash, mama!" she told me. Silly kids.

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!

Helper sissy

Gemma loves to help. Kolbe was in his bouncy-chair the other day, and she proudly came and told me, "mommy, I got bubby some toys." Yep, she did. All of them.

The evolution of help

I like to find little chores for Gemma to help me with around the house, I just think it's good for her. She likes to load the washer and unload the dryer and is beginning to get a grasp on putting some of her laundry away (one piece at a time, of course ;-D). I have her put her jammies back in her drawer or in the dirty clothes each morning, and she can, for the most part, undress herself at the end of the day and put her dirty clothes in the basket and her diaper in the pail. She also loves helping me unload the dishwasher, and boy has she come a long way.

From this (last October), when she just randomly threw the silverware in the drawer by the handful...
To this (she's standing on her stepstool)...
...putting all of the silverware away, by herself, in the correct spots. She didn't quite get the sizing right on all the spoons and forks, but all the forks were in fork slots, spoons in spoon slots, etc. I was so tickled. I am very proud of my Gemma-goo and the big helper she is getting to be.

Laundry helpers

Gemma has been a huge help with the laundry lately. I open the washer, she brings her step-stool, I put the pile of previously sorted laundry on the floor, and she climbs up and down, putting the laundry in the washer piece by piece. It is so sweet, and really is a great little "chore" for her.
I guess Kolbe wanted in on the action, too!!

Happy second BIRTHday, Gemma!!

Today is my sweet Gemma-girl's second birthday. So today, we celebrate her. And yesterday, too!! It was more practical for us to have her party on a Sunday...and now I have the fun of posting party pics ON her birthday. :-D

Here she is seeing her cake the first time. She has gotten very into "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats lately, and she's also pretty taken with snowmen, so I thought that would be a fun and easy cake. I, unlike my mother and sister, am not so into the whole cake-decorating thing....so I was pretty pleased with the results. Did you know they make frosting in easy-cheese cans?? It's the coolest thing ever.
The spread. She picked out the red plates. She was quite adamant about them, in fact. Every color of the rainbow plus decorated ones and you name it. And she wants red. OOOOOKAY!
Looking at the photo-collage I put together. She didn't quite get that it was her, just a baby. But she did point to one of the 3month ones taken with a stuffed duck and say, "that's Gemma's duck. In basement." Pretty funny. Sidenote, she picked her shirt out all her own at Target with some birthday money. She was so proud of the balloons, and as soon as she got up from her nap yesterday and I told her it was almost time for Gemma's happy birthday party she said, "and wear boons shirt?!" Pretty cute. She was proud of it. It was pretty big for a 2T, hence the pink one I tossed under it. Oh well.
And this isn't the greatest pic of Gemma-goo by any means, but it shows her shoe choice for the day. She picked them out all by herself, would you believe?!!
Again, she and cousin Coop played together so nicely. They were playing with this toy a good 15-20 minutes, no fighting!!
Opening presents was like Christmas...same song, second verse...had to say "uh-oh, take it" and hand every shred of wrapping paper to someone . WHERE does she GET this stuff??!! *sheepish grin*
We got her some new big girl books: "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb", "Oh the Thinks you can Think", "Hop on Pop", "I Like Wind" and "When God Created the Earth" (the last two were neat ones I found at the Catholic bookstore). I also had my dad come over Saturday and help me set up my old doll crib that he and my grandpa made me when I was a small girl. And yes, it was a HUGE hit. I made a little pillow and blanket to go with it, and the minute she saw it she RAN to her room and got her baby and knew JUST what to do. We have put it at the foot of her bed, and I'm sure added about 10 minutes to our bedtime routine, but I just think it is so sweet, and will be especially neat to have with the new baby on the way!
Waiting while everyone sang "Happy Birthday". I couldn't believe she didn't try to blow the candle out right away. When we are at church, she sits on our laps and tries to blow the candles on the altar out. I'm not kidding. The Advent Wreath apparently really made an impression.
And NOW we blow the candle out!!
Helping me dish up the cake. It was really great when she stuck it smack in the middle, pulled it out and licked off the frosting. Yeah, we washed the spatula off after that.
She took about two bites of cake...
...and then had to go check on her baby, because, "baby wake up!!!!!"
What a special day we had. We had so much fun with all our guests, and have been soooo blessed to spend the last two years (+ nine months in utero) with our sweet, sweet little girl. Here's to the terrific twos!!!!

What's Gemma up to?

I thought I would dedicate this post to my sweet Gemma-girl, and the "top ten" things she's been up to lately, so here goes!!
1. THE OUTDOORS. We crave these gorgeous Fall days we've been having, and try to make the most of outdoor activities including going to walky-Max (with daddy), play at the park (just about everyday), playing in the empty kiddie-pool in the driveway (yup, we did that, and she was entertained for well over 30 minutes), and even a trip to the zoo the other day that ended in an all-out meltdown when we had to leave the petting farm. I think I need to ask the zoo if we can have some sort of "fast-pass" that is cheaper and only gets us into the petting-farm part since that's the part she loves and prefers to ANYTHING else.
2. READING. As always. She loves her books, whether she's reading herself or being read to. Her lastest favorite is picking books out of her basket (either the one in her room or the one in the living room), and toting a handful back to her big-girl room where she lounges on the bed and reads them. It's pretty sweet, and this momma will never complain about too much reading going on :-)
3. FRIDGE FARM. We've had this for about a year, but the first several months her favorite thing to do was slide the animal pieces under the fridge. All kinds of fun. Now she really gets into putting the animals in and making matches (and non-matches) with them. It really is a cute toy, as toys that make noise go (not a huge fan of those in general, I usually take the batteries out before the make it into her hands). I'm thinking about getting her the fridge-phonics for Christmas.
4. HELPER. This girl loves to help. With anything and everything going on. Her lastest favorite is unloading the dishwasher. And she really is quite particular about it and does a great job! Here she is putting the silverware away. Yeah, I probably should have used the "sport" feature on my camera to better picture the action shot. She's pretty, uh, enthusiastic about putting it away. I usually have to "reorganize" a bit once she's finished.
5. BABY. Still loves her baby, babies actually. We now have Baby and Copple Baby (purple baby). Her latest fave is feeding her babies. I am soooooo excited to get her a kitchen set and all the accoutrements for Christmas!
6. BATHROOM. And all activities there-in. The girl loves having her teeth brushed, and would do it ten times a day if we let her. We use our electric spin-brush on her, and she seems to think that's pretty cool business. Still loves her baths, and has been doing a great job telling me when she has to "poopy-potty" (poop). She has been doing this for over a month now, and I even bought some training-pants. Just not sure she's ready. She gets the "poopy" part so well, but I'm just not sure she understands the whole potty thing yet. But I hate to miss out on the opportuinity if she is ready. Contemplating...

7. EATING. She really does well with this, which I never would have dreamed of saying six months ago. She's come such a long way. I think teething really made eating un-fun for her, and that was most of our issues. Anyways, several of her recent favorites are tias (tortillas prepared in any variety of ways, especially quesadillas), beans (pinto, black, kidney, refried, you name it, she LOVES them), green beans, bananas, chicken, oh heck, I could go on and on. She really does well with just about anything. We are definitely sad fresh fruit season is coming to an end. Here is a pic of her eating her bunny-roni today at lunch. I'm still not sure why she asked for the fork...
8. DADDY. Anything and everything to do with daddy. The two of them have a special bond and I love it!! We treasure the time he spends at home and miss him when he's at work.
9. BASEMENT. We've been playing in the basement more lately. It's our intended playroom, long term, just hasn't been terribly practical when I'm needing to do things upstairs. It's easier having the toys where I can watch her and cook, clean, whatever, at the same time. We've brought some of her toys downstairs though, and she does great playing while I'm sewing.

10. GEMMA'S MUSIC. She has really gotten into listening to her CD's in the car and at home. She gets stuck on "favorite" songs though, and it's all she wants to listen to. In the car it is "Happy Jesus, Happy Day" (Walk with Jesus Every Day), and at home it is "Mingo" (BINGO). She's also a huge fan of the ABC's, and can recite most all of the alphabet herself.

Well, that's all folks... If you made it this far, thanks for bearing with me. And I apologize, I think a few of the pics may have been repeats, but they fit. I could ramble further, but I'll refrain. Have a happy week!!