Friday, October 28, 2011

Quick 5

It's the end of October, and Christmas songs are starting to quietly creep into my consciousness.  It's the most wonderful time of the year, right?

1.  Sometimes Alaina spills her water, like every little kid.  Only she no longer tells me about it; she simply takes it upon herself to clean it up.  Sounds like a great arrangement, except for the fact that her go-to means of cleaning up spills is toilet paper.  I get it: it is within her reach.  But toilet paper is the worst thing to use to clean up a spill.  It creates a bigger mess.  I'm trying to tell her to just tell me so I can get her a towel.  I suppose I'll just have to put a few towels within her reach, and teach her where those are.

2.  In a related story, for the first time in their little lives, Alaina and her friend Avery were naughty together.  I was watching the younger two Gillett girls while their mom was teaching piano lessons this past Monday, and things were going great.  I had finally turned on The Aristocats, so Macy, Joya and I were enjoying that movie, while Alaina and Avery got bored and wandered off.  They just went into the dining room, where Alaina's coloring table is, so it was fine.  I heard them giggling and shrieking and having a grand old time, and that was fine too.  After awhile I finally got up to go check on them, only to find them standing on chairs at the dining room table.  I had forgotten that I had given them all small paper cups of water for their snack.  Well, the water cups were empty, and all across the table was water, clumps of wet toilet paper and all the salt and pepper from my salt and pepper shakers.  There was a good amount of salt and pepper on the carpet too.  I immediately put a stop to that, scolded the girls and banished them to the living room to watch the rest of the movie while I cleaned up the mess.  Of course Alaina immediately started crying when she saw me (funny how she was giggling before I came in, but the minute I entered the room she knew she was in trouble.)  Right then Lee got home, and Alaina tearfully told him, "Daddy, I made a mistake!"  It was the first time little Thelma and Louise had been naughty at my house.  Not too big a deal, but one for the books, that's for sure.

3.  Joya now has four teeth, her middle bottom and her middle top.  I forgot how big the top middle teeth are; hers are probably halfway grown in, and it has almost erased the baby look of her face.  Babies seem to become kids when they have their teeth.  Mothers all over like to proudly point out how early their babies get teeth, but I'm not so sure it's a good thing.  It's just one huge sign that your baby isn't going to be a baby forever.

4.  Wednesday we had our first snow of the season.  It actually was my favorite kind of snow: snow falling all day, sticking to the grass and trees but melting on the roads.  I wish it would snow like that all the time.  Anyway, it was the first time that Alaina got to get dressed up in snow gear and go outside to play.  She, of course, loved it.  And was horribly sad when it was time to come in.  I sent her outside with her daddy, who spent most of the time lobbing snowballs at her.  She would shriek and giggle every time she got hit.  So.  Cute.  I would have taken more pictures, but my camera battery decided to peter out.


5.    The sight of all the colored trees makes me happy.  It seemed to take awhile, but finally all the trees that turn red are bright red.  For some reason, though, as we're driving around, Alaina always says, "Ooo, yellow trees?  Remember what Grandad says?  He doesn't like the yellow ones!"  Is that true, Grandad?  Because she's said it more than once, so you must have said it to her.  :)

Have a great weekend, and get out there and read The Hunger Games!

Friday, October 21, 2011

Quick 5

What. A. Week.

1.  At the end of last week, we had have my car towed into the shop.  Again.  The emergency brake locked up, and we couldn't get it to disengage.  That is an expensive fix, let me tell you.  The worst part about all this car trouble that we've been having lately, is that I no longer trust our cars.  Before I leave the house I check and double check to make sure I have my cell phone and the diaper bag, just in case we're going to be stuck somewhere.  Not really a fun way to live.

2.  On Monday, I took Joya in for her one-year check up.  Everything is in perfect order.  And I'm terrible about getting numbers, but I can tell you that she is very tall.  She's in the 90th percentile for height.  But we all knew this.  At that visit, Joya got two shots, and Alaina and I each got our flu shot.  It was the first time since Alaina was tiny that she cried at getting a shot.  It was sad.  I expected Joya to cry, and she did, but not Alaina. 

3.  As a result of the shots, Joya had a fever Monday night.  I heard her whimpering, and simply thought she was cold.  She refuses to sleep under a blanket, so she sometimes wakes up cold.  I ignored it, but then heard her whimpering an hour later.  I got out of bed to go cover her up, and while she was uncovered, she was on fire.  I quickly gave her some baby tylenol, and then tried to go back to sleep.  She was still whimpering 45 minutes later, so I picked her up and held her for awhile.  I felt her fever brake, then put her back to bed.  She still whimpered off and on for the rest of the night, but she didn't have a fever again.  Even though it was 3:00 in the morning, I actually loved holding her.  She doesn't really snuggle often; she's too busy for that.  But at 3:00 in the morning with a fever, she was tired and didn't feel good, so she laid still on my shoulder and let me just rub her back.  I was sad she wasn't feeling well, but I really enjoyed that snuggle time.

4.  Here's a fun comparison:
Alaina's First Birthday
Joya's First Birthday
 5.  Joya is finally, officially pulling herself up on everything.  It is so cute to see her standing.  I still don't have high expectations of her walking soon, since Alaina didn't walk until she was 15 months old, but she could surprise me. 

Well, we have another weekend of gorgeous weather coming up.  Hope it's gorgeous where you are too.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Joya's First Birthday Party

We had Joya's birthday party on Saturday.  It was a lovely, very warm day, which made my menu of yummy fall soups kind of a bad idea.  But who knew it would be 80 degrees in the middle of October?  My parents and brother, sister and her family and some family friends crowded into our house for the big event.  Joya cheerfully crawled around, chowed down on potatoes and carrots from the sausage potato soup, and turned delighfully bashful when we all sang Happy Birthday to her.  She enjoyed the cake, but didn't eat too much of it.  I'll be honest: we (and I do mean I) are pretty militant about keeping the girls from sugar until they are one, and I love how when we do finally give them cake or whatnot, that they are perfectly content with just a couple of bites.  If only I could show that same restraint.

And here's another confession: I'm not a fan of the first birthday.  I think I'll do much better when the girls can tell me how they want to celebrate.  I don't really know if I do enough, or if I'm going overboard, since when they turn one, they don't really care anyway.  But I do like celebrating my girls.  And I was so proud to celebrate Joya.

The party guests arrive
Joya just wants a toy to chew on
Opening presents
She got toys and clothes
Grandad the Party Animal
Sometimes Mommy didn't open the presents fast enough
Alaina got to hold her cousin Oliver
Lovely shoes from Apple Ben
Blowing out the candle
It's so pretty
The only bite she took of the whole cake; the frosting was much better
Trying to get the cake off her hands

Friday, October 14, 2011

Happy 1st Birthday, Joya!

Happy birthday, Joya Bear!  You are one year old today!  You are growing and learning and trying new things.  We love having you in our family.  You are sweet and silly and love to watch your sister.  You really like emptying things, like toy boxes.  My favorite thing to watch you do is read books.  You like to crawl over to the bookshelf and take all the books off, one by one.  You open them and look at the pages.  Sometimes you even try to eat the pages, but you'll grow out of that soon.  Just yesterday you pulled up to standing for the first time, so I know that pretty soon you'll be walking around just like your big sister.  You also love to clap your hands.  Your favorite Baby Einstein DVDs are the ones with the animals on them.

We love you so much.  We pray that the Lord protects your life, and that you draw close to Him at an early age.  We pray that you will grow to hate sin, and that you will get caught when you're guilty.  We pray that God guides you in the path of righteousness and that you will learn to call on God for every need.  We pray that you will care of others and learn to love as God desires you to.

We are so excited to see how you will learn and grow this year.  We know that your babyness is going to quickly melt away into fun, funny toddlerhood, and we can't wait to see you grow up.

We love you!

Love,
Mommy, Daddy and Alaina

Friday, October 7, 2011

Quick 5

Well, we made it to October.  Apparently the angry wind outside means the seasons are changing.  I'll have to see it to believe it.

1.  This week we had a play date with Grammy.  We saw Grammy on Sunday when we went to Colorado Springs to celebrate my nephew Oliver's dedication, but apparently that wasn't enough.  On Monday morning, Alaina spent a good amount of her room time sobbing because she wanted Grammy.  When I asked her why she wanted Grammy, she replied, "Because I love her!"  And when I asked her what she would do if Grammy were here, she said, "Go to the playground!"  So I asked her if I should email Grammy to see if she might have some time in the next couple of weeks to come over and play.  Alaina perked up then, and said, "Yes!  Go mail her right now!"  She then proceeded to ask throughout the day if Grammy had "mailed" back.  Thankfully Grammy was able to come over on Wednesday for a trip to the park.  I guess the girl just needed to fill up her Grammy tank.

2.  The bad news of the week: Lee's car needed to go into the shop.  Nothing like watching big chunks of your bank account disappear rapidly.

3.  Lately, Alaina wants to pray this prayer at every meal:
Thank you, Cubbies!

4.  Joya is slowly catching on to the idea of eating big people food.  This is what she looked like after a particularly enjoyable lunch:

5.   I know that Alaina is getting older, and that means it's time to start responsibility training.  However, I really struggle with knowing what kind of chores are appropriate for her.  I read the articles online, but they don't really help me, for some reason.  Right now Alaina's main responsibilities are cleaning up the toys in the living room at the end of the day, and gathering and taking out the recycle.  Then today I stumbled upon another one that I think she might be able to help with: dusting.  I got a Swiffer feather duster thing in the mail, so I've been using it.  Today I handed it over to Alaina to use on the shelves within her reach.  And she LOVED it.  And cried and cried when I made her put it away so she could go take a nap.  I hope she feels this level of excitement toward all the chores I give her in the future.

A big shout-out to my foreign family: sis Carolyn and bro-in-law Jason who are celebrating their 5th anniversary today.  Congratulations, you two!  Hope it involves a trip across the border to Sonic.