Little Bits and Pieces

Susannah has recently turned into quite the little mama to her baby.  She even has the whole "jiggle the baby on your hip" thing down, which is cute to watch and wonder who she learned it from since I'm not a baby "jiggler" (hey, I have enough jiggly places, I don't NEED to stand around jiggling!).

Last week I did a bunch of work in Susannah's room, rearranging her dresser and then moved in her little table and chairs.  Since she now has a nice, big window in her room that lets the light POUR in (I love it!), she likes to spend time in there reading or coloring.  It's nice to have the crayons and coloring books off the dining room table!

On Sunday, Sylvia refused to drink goat milk for the first time.  She has been self-weaning since about the 1st of February and is down to just nursing the 1st feeding of the day.  I was weaning her to goat milk (you can read why we were weaning to goat milk and not cow milk here) and she made the switch just fine. I don't know the sudden reason for her stopping liking it, but she is very happy to drink water.  Since goat milk from the grocery store is $4/quart, our wallet is not complaining at her choice.  She eats plenty of other dairy products and good-fat foods, so I'm not too worried about it.

Sunday morning we got to church and I was getting Sylvia out of her car-seat.  As I was standing up with her in my arms, she leaned over my arm and out shot a huge, projectile-vomit burp.  She straightened up, gagged and her stomach heaved out another huge projectile vomit.  It splattered all over the side of the car, in the car on the seat (YAY for leather seats!!!), and blasted the side of the diaper bag.  Somehow this is not the first time that Sunday-morning vomit-burps have happened (for her or Susannah).  You just do what you gotta do, then, and move on!  After wiping up the car as best we could with paper towels from a bathroom, we left the windows cracked and the diaper bag in the trunk.

Sunday afternoon I had to pick up my grain order and on the way home from that noticed the car making a noise.  On the way to church for the evening service it was more pronounced, enough that I pulled over into a driveway to make sure a tire wasn't getting ready to burst or something.  Daniel drove it home from church (he drove separately for practice) and he determined that a bearing in one of the hubs was going bad.  Yesterday on his way home from work he stopped and picked up a new one (and a little more expensive than the one he'd just replaced not 2 years ago!) with a 3 year warranty.  After supper he went out in the cold night, tore the wheel apart and replaced it.  A test drive proved the problem fixed.  I'm proud of my husband and appreciate his diligent work and knowledge to tackle and fix our vehicle issues, the savings are enormous.

Life is not dull around here, but right now it is quiet as the girls nap. :)  I should go get my cup of tea and work on it before the afternoon gets too late and the caffeine keeps me up when I should be in bed!

Mid-Week Randoms

Back in October when we were moving into our new living room (which we really did not have any furniture for, aside from our piano and love-seat), we were given a bunch of furniture including bookshelves.  Be still, my heart!!  To not have to use diaper boxes on their sides to hold the girls' books?!?! Pure bliss!  From time to time, Sylvia can be found pouring over books as she pulls them out and looks at them (and frequently chews on them).

A few weeks ago, we were having mouse problems.  Mousie was quite talented and stole the bait from a regular trap twice before deciding it was too risky to even approach the trap.  I finally resorted to glue traps, under the stove.  Last week we caught another "mouse"... this one was very cute, brown-eyed and pig-tailed. :)  She was looking for toys under the stove and instead found the glue trap.  Not knowing what it was, she ended up stuck... and then more stuck as she tried to get un-stuck!

During Susannah's bedtime routine, I noticed something amiss with her bedside lamp.  I thought Daniel had been silly, but when I asked him about it, he said he didn't do it.  When I asked Susannah about it, she got a silly grin on her face and said she'd done it.  Can you figure it out?

Morning Sylvia.

LOVE Day

This year for Valentine's Day (or "Love Day" as I'm hearing families call it) I wanted to make it a special, family affair.  Why should it just be for Daniel and I when 2 other, little people hold our hearts, too? :)

I planned a fairly simple meal of Chicken Alfredo and green beans, with chocolate fondue for dessert.  I recently unpacked my good dishes (after being packed up at my Mom's for close to 4 years) along with my fondue pot.  I was excited to have my good dishes usable again, and Susannah was dying to use the Hershey's Kiss fondue pot even though she had no idea what it was for.

On Wednesday, Susannah helped me make an angel food cake for the fondue (have LOTS of egg whites in the freezer from making mayonnaise helps :) ), and I'd bought strawberries because they were cheap, smelled really good, and would be a special treat.  I also had quite a bit of dark chocolate ganache leftover from some cupcakes that I'd made the week before.  All that helped determine a special dessert menu.

Thursday afternoon I spent all of naptime getting the table ready by pulling things from here and there around the house.  I even unpacked the two candle-holders that I'd decided were yard sale material.  I wanted candles, but realized that the tall candlesticks I had decided to keep were not practical for a family dinner with 2 active little people at the table.  The flower arrangement was my bridesmaid flowers from my sister's wedding.

All day Thursday - that she was awake and not napping, that is - Susannah kept saying "It's my malentime!" ("It's my valentine!" is the interpretation) similar to how one would say "It's my birthday!".  After her nap, I gave her a bath and got her dressed up for the special dinner, and I dressed up, too.  I was going to bathe Sylvia but ran out of time... and after dinner realized it was a good thing because she needed a bath after eating!

Daniel surprised us with handmade cards. :)  For Susannah's card, he signed it "Your muscleman"; in mine he added a post-script inviting me on a date that Saturday evening that he'd secretly planned!

Susannah was very eager to get to dessert.  Sylvia, even though she was eating her supper fine, kept vocally indicating that she wanted something on the table.  I kept shoveling food in her mouth (she can EAT, I tell ya!), thinking she was just hungry.  I finally figured out that she wanted the strawberries. I gave her a tiny piece, twice, and each time she made a horrible face and spit it out.  But she kept begging for it.  Finally, to ease our eardrums from her very loud grunting, I gave her a whole strawberry.  Her grin was from ear to ear and bright enough to light the room.  She still didn't like the taste of it, but loved holding it and mutilating it with her fingers for the rest of dinner.

It was a special dinner and a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to more special dinners to come.  Susannah really enjoyed the anticipation of the special meal which made it that much more fun to do.
 

In The Month of January ~ Looking Back

 Sylvia learned to crawl.  She gets around quite well now. :)   And somehow knows if someone is in the bathroom, she heads right to the door!

With learning to crawl, she started pondering our [unfinished] stairs.  Within a few days I'd bid, won and received a baby-gate from ebay and Daniel installed it.

 

Susannah loves to paint with the easel and paints that we gave her for Christmas.  This is a special treat that she gets to do probably once a week when I can supervise and dole out the paint a tsp. or so at a time.

Sylvia loves to sit at the piano and play it.  :)

The 2nd week of January the weather was dry and Daniel was getting home from work early.  I asked him if he could till the garden, and he did.  I was really glad about that, as the next week it started a long period of raining or snowing frequently.  If we had not tilled it, we probably would not have been able to before time to plant.

Sylvia had an allergic reaction to a food one evening.  After this, I realized that she'd reacted similarly - but not as severely - twice before.  The day after this was a well-check-up, and the Dr. prescribed an epi-pen for us to have on hand.  We're not sure what she reacted to, but thankfully she hasn't had any reactions since (I have also been careful about what she eats).

I did a germination test on "old" pea and corn seeds that had been in the freezer.  100% germination! I am happy that I won't have to buy corn and pea seeds this year.

 Susannah loves to play with her play-dough and likes me to help her make food.
She is a good mama to her Baby. :)

Play-dough with Susannah keeps the house a little more "lived in" looking, but she enjoys it SO much!

One chilly day she was wearing her "ugly Christmas sweater" and a baby's head-band around her head.  She was quite the sight!

 

 The 1st snow of the year was very wet and muddy. She spent most of her time dipping mud-water from a puddle and pouring it somewhere else. :)  ALL of her outerwear went in the washing machine after this!

Enjoying her first mug of hot chocolate, after playing in the snow of course. :)

 Snow and dirt cookies after the 2nd snow.

 One warm day I took the pak'n'play outside so we could all get some fresh air.  I raked up a big pile of leaves while the girls played.

 Sylvia has dropped her morning nap for the most part, this day she fell asleep waiting for lunch.

Dressed for church.