catching up

It has been a long time, but I'm not ready to give up on the blog yet. Life is just too busy lately, and when I have free time I tend to use it for other things. I really like being able to look back at how the kids have grown and how life has changed, so it's time to start catching up a little. 

We had a lovely Thanksgiving. As it turned out, there was a big snow storm that knocked out power at my parents' house for several days. We went anyway, and other than small inconveniences (no internet) everything was able to function on their generator. 

Beautiful drive north:

Henry turned three the day after Thanksgiving. We had a cake and he opened a few presents. 

Henry is very proud to be a three-year-old. 

Since Thanksgiving was late this year, we jumped right into Christmas activities that weekend. After arriving home from New Hampshire, we went for a ride on the Polar Express. 

We also go each year to a day of Christmas events around town. There are a lot of things for kids, and at the end of the day Santa arrives at the town common on a fire truck. Last year he talked to Celia, and this year Henry got a high five. 

Somewhere in there, we decorated gingerbread houses and made peppermint ornaments for our neighbors. 

A botanical garden near us has a lot of events throughout the year, including crafts for kids, musical performances and light displays at Christmas. We went one day, but the kids didn't last long enough for us to see all the lights. We would have had to wait until it got dark. I'd like to do it another year. 

There was a theme this year, of using found or recycled materials to decorate trees. There were some really neat ones. This was my favorite, covered in paper peonies. 

We had a good Christmas. I hardly took any pictures. My parents were here Christmas Eve and stayed over, and we had both families here on Christmas Day. It is a lot of people, but it always works well having everyone here. 

Here they are with their Christmas loot. Couldn't get them both looking and smiling, but each picture has one kid looking...

We're at the very end of a nice, long vacation week. We were pretty successful at keeping the kids busy, but also had some moments of insanity. We had a friend of Celia's over to play one day. They had a great time, and the kids were so busy with each other that it was actually a break for me too! We went to an indoor playground one day, and another day it was warm enough to go to an outdoor playground. Since it has been unseasonably warm, with no snow yet, I've been trying to get the kids outside and running around as much as I can. At some point soon we'll have a long period of cold. Another day we went to the mall to use the play area and ride the carousel, and on another day Celia went to play at another friend's house. She has some nice kids in her class, and we're planning to start inviting more friends over. We've also done quite a bit of painting and drawing. 

Henry is starting to do more with his scribbling, painting and drawing. He is starting to make more representative drawings, rather than scribbling all the time. The other day he drew this face and said, "Does this look like me?" He is also recognizing more letters, and is starting to write a few. 

Henry had his three year check-up this week too. He did very well getting a finger prick and a flu shot. His flu shot gave him a fever later that day, as it has done before. He seems to have a little reaction every year. He weighs 30.5 pounds and is 37 inches tall, around the 30th percentile for both. His iron levels were high, and the doctor and nurse were very impressed that a vegan toddler could have such good iron levels. 

Honestly, is he not the cutest little monkey? 

There you have our last couple of months in a nutshell.

fall fun and big milestones

It's been a long time again. I think of things to write about during the day, but by the time the kids are in bed I'm all out of energy for writing. We are really deep into autumn here now. We're probably just past peak fall foliage. We had some rain and wind that blew a lot of trees bare this week. Henry and I have been playing in leaves while sister's at school, we've taken some walks, and we've all been outside quite a bit. Today the kids played while Chris and I started preparing the yard and garage for winter. We brought some firewood inside and had our first fire, which is something I look forward to every year. (Ask me how I feel come February, when I'm dusting the house daily and constantly running and cleaning the humidifier.) 

It was a dreary day when I took this picture, but we've had some beautiful views from the back deck.

In other news, Henry has surprised us and ended up potty training over the last few days! He was very resistant to it, so I had decided we'd let him go until his third birthday and then train him. But it seems that he's now ready and has done a great job this weekend. He has been in underwear all day with no accidents! He is very proud of himself, and has even been going to the potty when he needs to without us always reminding him. 

He is so adorable in his little undies.

Henry has been a bit of a terror lately, but this weekend he seemed to turn a corner. He still had a few moments, but was much happier and more compliant. I think potty training has something to do with it. 

Celia has also hit a big milestone this week. She is reading! It's amazing. We've worked on letters and their sounds, and a little on the beginning concepts of reading and spelling. We came across a set of BOB books at my in-laws' last weekend, and I brought them home to try. Celia picked them up and something just clicked for her, and she read them! She's doing very well at it. 

Guess that's all for now. 

weekend

It has been really, really cold here. On Saturday morning the thermometer read -14 F when I woke up. But today it got up to the 40s. Weird. 

We've had a good weekend, and I'm now dreading being back at work on Monday. Vacations are bad for me. They just make me want to stay home full time.

Yesterday morning I let both kids help me cook for the first time. Henry can now follow directions, wait, take turns, etc and actually participated in the cooking without any disasters. It was so cute. Now I know that when he comes running into the kitchen with his arms held up, yelling "I want to help! I want to help!", it will sometimes actually work to let him help me. 

After breakfast, I put a turtleneck on Henry. He said, "I want the turtle. Where's the turtle?" Ha!

Celia had a birthday party to attend, so Chris took her and I stayed home with Henry. We had such a nice time. Henry kept asking for food, but he had already had a few snacks so I held him off until lunch time. He ended up having a 45-minute lunch! Two bowls of carrot soup, 1/4 of a yellow pepper, a cup of grapes, and a whole lot of oyster crackers. Then we played in the ball pit and read books. I've noticed a change in Henry over the last couple weeks. He is getting more mature. The terrible toddler is still there, but there's a glimpse of older kid there too. He's using more complex sentences, and seems to be understanding more complex narrative language. He has started understanding concepts like "today" and "tomorrow". He remembers things I've told him, from one day to another. Anyway, I thought of all this because I've also noticed that he's enjoying more advanced books. He still likes looking at picture books and board books, but he now prefers hearing real stories. It's really fun to see him enjoy story books. 

Chris and Celia got home while Henry was napping. Pita had all kinds of My Little Pony party favors. For some reason she was doing all kinds of poses when I wanted to take her picture.

I had to go grocery shopping, which I hate to do in the afternoon (very crowded), but I hadn't gone in the morning because it was icy and -14. So I talked Celia into going with me, and we went out for a while. Pita is a very good grocery shopping companion. Her only requirement is that I get five green twisty ties for her from the produce department, each time we shop. The store was horribly crowded, as usual for a weekend afternoon. I couldn't wait to get out of there when we were done. Then we went over to Carter's because Celia needed a couple of new shirts and I had $30 of store credit there. I paid $5, and ended up with three shirts for Celia, a pair of pjs in the next size up for Henry, and sunglasses for Henry. Henry likes sunglasses and so far has always worn Celia's. When Pita saw them in the store, she wanted to get Henry his own. 

Today we had a pretty relaxed day, mostly at home. Before nap time, Henry and Celia were playing so well together. Celia was in Little Mommy mode, taking care of Henry. I got a bag of cotton balls for them to play with this week, and boy was that two dollars well spent. Those cotton balls have had about fifty uses so far. Today they were cooking with them and pretending they were coffee in their coffee maker. They made cake and coffee :).

Celia discovered the voice recording app on her LeapPad. She was absolutely amazed by it, and spent a lot of time recording songs. 

Celia got Henry ready for his nap today! They didn't even want me around! She read books to him, which was interesting seeing as she can't actually read. She did pretty well using the pictures as a guide, making up her own words. Henry listened very intently. Then Celia let Henry take her stuffed dog to bed for his nap. Oh, these sweet babies. I love them so much. 

tuesdays

I could tell you all about the peaceful afternoon I'm having now that Henry's napping, with Celia gone at school. About how I've already made dinner for later, folded all the laundry, put up some fall decorations, and am sipping hot pumpkin spice coffee with a fall candle burning, having some quiet time and about to do a little work. And that would all be true...but I'd be omitting the part about how this morning went. Ha!

I think we need to work on getting the kids to bed earlier, and getting Celia up a little earlier now that school is starting. Some mornings are just too rushed because she can take a long time to get dressed and eat breakfast, and if Henry's being his typical terrible toddler self it makes it even more challenging. Henry was in a terrible mood this morning. Celia and Chris got going to school, and I was planning on going out with Henry right away to get dance shoes for Celia. She has dance at school, and no one notified us of what the kids need so I just found out yesterday we need tap and ballet shoes. Henry was so cranky and just constantly mad about something and having tantrums. We finally got out of the house and he was okay, but the shoe store didn't have Celia's size in the ballet shoes so it was kind of a waste that we went all the way there. We went home, I ordered the shoes online, and Henry was in a terrible mood again. I noticed he had some gas, so I thought maybe his stomach was hurting. Meanwhile, I was also getting paranoid that he must have an ear infection or something else that was bothering him. He was just miserable. Finally I got him interested in eating lunch, so he had some pasta and sweet potato and went in the family room to play. He ended up pooping and seemed much better after that. Poor little dude.

Having breakfast and watching Elmo (Celia never wants to watch Elmo) after Sister left for school!

Very busy playing all by himself.

Henry always plays really well after lunch. It's the one time of day when he really likes to play independently. He played for almost an hour with the Little People, cars, and trucks. Every so often he would come show me something, but mostly enjoyed playing by himself. Then we read some books and he went up for his nap. Then came that nice, quiet nap time.

Today things were a little off, but I am looking forward to having Henry by himself on Tuesdays this year. As much as Celia and Henry like playing (and fighting) with each other, it will be nice for him to have time to play with toys without Celia interfering, and nice for us to do things together. Being the younger sibling, Henry hardly gets any one-on-one time the way Celia used to. I'm looking forward to getting in a good routine and having a good morning schedule now that school has started. Time to go wake up Henry and get Celia from school!

hand, foot and mouth strikes again

Yesterday afternoon, Henry suddenly become very cranky and only wanted to be held. Then I noticed that he felt hot and sure enough, he had a fever. My first thought was that he had an ear infection, because he had one not too long ago. We gave him Motrin and Tylenol for the night, and this morning we went in to the doctor. It turns out that his ears are fine, but he has the hand, foot and mouth virus. I'm wondering if I have it too because I've had what I thought were terrible canker sores in my mouth, but maybe it's actually hand, foot and mouth. Ugh. Hopefully it won't last long, and mine won't get any worse. When Celia was a toddler she got hand, foot and mouth, and I ended up having a much worse case of it than she did. Oh, and here's a funny story (sort of). When I started thinking maybe Henry had an ear infection, I began putting a few drops of breast milk in his ears every time he nursed. It's a natural antibiotic and a good natural treatment for ear infections. I thought this was fairly mainstream knowledge, and I know our pediatrician would think it was a good route to take. So this morning we ended up seeing one of the nurse practitioners and I mentioned that was using the breast milk just in case it was an ear infection, and she looked at me like I was absolutely insane. So I'm pretty sure "mom crazy" is now part of Henry's medical record. I guess the NP is not as progressive as our pediatrician is... 

They always like the play house in the doctor's waiting room.

Luckily Celia is being so good today. She usually likes to help when Henry is sick.

Henry wasn't feeling well when he woke up this morning, but I gave him another dose of Motrin and he perked up after a while. He actually had a good breakfast and was in a pretty good mood for the doctor. Then we went home and he was really not doing so well again. I let him nap for a while while nursing, and Celia played a game on my phone, and then we woke Henry up, played and had lunch. He perked up again for a while around lunch time.

After lunch we played "wedding" for quite a while. The wedding involved Henry and me as guests and Celia as the bride. I'm not sure there was a groom. We were directed to bring her gifts and then watched her put on a show. Ha! Then she prepared a vegan meal in the play kitchen and we ate, had cake and sang Happy Birthday and had a tea party. It was quite an unusual wedding. Then Henry was getting tired again, so we read books and luckily he seems to be taking a good nap! Poor little guy. Celia and I are having some down time on the deck, and I'm hoping Henry will feel good enough for us to play at the water table when he wakes up. Celia is asking me constant questions right now. How do you make a rock? What happens when you eat food? What happens when you talk? (She wants to know what happens in your body when you do different things.) How does paper get made? The four year old mind just never stops. We just looked up a kids website that showed how the digestive system works. She loved it. 

Now to go and figure out what we're having for dinner tonight! Something that won't hurt Henry's throat or my mouth... 

miscellany monday

Guys. I've gotten myself together enough to do a Miscellany Monday post. This is momentous.

1) It's especially momentous because I've even managed to get this together when we all have colds. I even ended up with a low fever Saturday afternoon. Then kids both have runny noses, but so far nothing too bad. Hopefully they will get over it without having bad colds.


2) I've been reading a lot lately. When I get into a good book, I just fly through it. The most recent ones were The Glass Castle, and City of Thieves.

3) What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Or at least for the other goose... Henry Boy wants to do everything big sister does. She had her scooter out this weekend, and every chance he got he would go and sit on it.

Also? I hope he will always be a red head. So freaking cute.

4) The little guy has also suddenly become quite a climber. He climbed onto Celia's little table the other day. He has been climbing into every box and container he can.

5) Aha! Another thing about Henry is that he is sleeping great at night now! Two nights of sleep training was all it took. We went from at least 2 wake-ups every night, to ten hours uninterrupted, to now 10 1/2-11 hours! It is so much better getting to sleep at night!

6) Celia has discovered that she likes cooked spinach! I've been trying to get her to eat leafy greens for a while now.

7) Yesterday was on the warmer side, and midday it was warm enough to play outside for a while. I'm already looking forward to spring.

monday miscellany

1) Our house is extra cozy and Christmas-y with a little snow on the ground and a fire in the fireplace every day these days.

2) We had Henry's first birthday party on Saturday. The little dude had a good time. He was pretty confused about the singing and cake part, but partway through decided to sing along. He liked pulling the wrapping paper off presents.

3) I've been trying to get some nice pictures of him to put together a 12 month post. He never stays still long enough to get a good picture. Finally got a few yesterday.

4) Yesterday morning Celia and I had our usual morning out together. We got some groceries and looked around the toy store. There were things she wanted for Christmas or her birthday and I said she would probably get some of them but not all, and she was very good about it. She didn't tease for anything and understood that we weren't there to buy anything. It was fun looking around with her.

5) Celia and I also put together a gingerbread house my mom brought, and decorated it. It came out looking pretty good! I'm not sure what's going on with Celia's model pose.

6) We also had some Christmas fun yesterday. The town next door to us (we used to live there so I kind of still think of it as our town) has a Christmas event every year. There are places to visit all over town with different events for kids, and at the end of the day Santa arrives on the town common on a fire truck. We stopped at the fire station and had a tour, stopped and went in a railroad car on the train tracks, and then went to the town common. There were carolers, a band playing by the gazebo, hot chocolate and hot apple cider. It was pretty crowded. Santa arrived on top of a fire truck and it was so fun to watch Celia. She sat on Chris's shoulders and was grinning and waving to Santa. It was so cute. She was disappointed that she didn't get to talk to Santa, so I think we'll take her somewhere where she can sit with him. We also ran into one of Celia's friends and made a play date for this week, so that was good too.

7) We were talking about how last year we went to the same event, and Henry was only about a week old. It was very cold that day and I had Henry in a sling inside my coat. Then I had to stay in the car and feed him while Celia and Chris went to see Santa. Christmas will probably always remind me of when he was a newborn now.