The World is Mud-licious and Puddle-Wonderful. --E.E. Cummings

What does any normal family do after church? It all started with us just checking on our garden to see any damage the night's frost had done to it. The cucumbers suffered the most fatalities. Then we thought, hey, lets water the veggies...which led to rinsing off a few paver stones...which led to a full on mud appreciation day for our child. There was serious puddle jumping and mud flinging. Luckily, the 30 degree weather had jumped to the 70s by the time this all began. A quick bath and a heavily soiled cycle on the washer and we were back to new.

Enjoying Her Books

Neal's Divine Chili

This past Friday evening we attended a chili cook-off and variety show. Neal's culinary wheels started turning as soon as they made the announcement about the upcoming activity in church. In fact, he titled his chili "Divine" because the recipe came to him during the church service. We are pleased to announce that his chili took 5th place and received honorable mention out of 21 chilies. You should have seen him beaming when people came up afterwards to ask him for the recipe. Way to go, Neal!

Guess Who Went Poo-poo in the Potty!

Well, we hope you have figured out that Neal and Keri have already mastered this skill. So that leaves......our crazy Sophie! Today was the first time she did #2 in the toilet and she did it on two separate occasions. Hooray for two less messy diapers in the world! Good for Sophie, good for Mommy and Daddy, and good for the environment!

Date Night

Neal is so awesome! He arranged for babysitting (Thank you Opa and Oma!), found free entertainment that was supurb, and ended the night with Cold Stone Creamery. We were able to see the Italian pianist Domenico Codispoti perform selections from one hundred years of Romanticism. We enjoyed the works of famous composers such as Liszt, Schumann, Granadosa, and Rachmaninov. It was amazing to watch his hands.

And, oh, Keri got the Birthday Bash Remix and Neal got cheesecake ice cream with butterfinger and reeses mix-ins. Great night! Great husband!

Lil' Lady

Grandma Susan sent a package of goodies for the kid and the kid to be. Included was a lovely pair of dress-up gloves which she adored. Thank you!

Spring is in the Air

We are happy to say that after weeks of planning, scavenging, and collecting, we have started our first garden. It's a container garden and we only got one container planted with tomatoes, bell peppers, and onions. Do you know how hard it is to come by large tree containers for dirt cheap?! Don't get us started! But we finally did and now we're planting! We need to collect more compost at the city compost site this weekend (since our own compost is no where near decomposed enough to use yet) to start at least 2 more containers which we hope will contain more tomatoes, cucumbers, cilantro, jalapenos, and eggplant. We'll let you know what the outcome is.
P.S. If you are pregnant do not, I repeat, DO NOT, prepare or fertilize with fish emulsion! I am in my 3rd trimester and haven't fought back serious repeated gagging like that since trimester one and that short bout with the stomach flu in trimester two. It was hard to prepare it, fight back the heaves, and my cat who was seriously interested in rotten fish juice! Uhg!

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Okay so she isn't wearing green but just look at the bows! How cute! I love little girl bows but they carry a hefty price! They are usually 4.99 to 5.99 a bow! I made these fun korker bows for less than 2.50 for the pair! Yippee!

In Honor of our Celtic Heritage

Last night we threw Sophie and her friend, Kenzie, into the backseat of the car and headed for our local library. In the auditorium, they were featuring Night of the Keltic Dead: A Musical Journey into the Celtic Cultures. We enjoyed watching and listening to four gentlemen tell us a bit about Celtic history, the origin of some of the songs, and their beautiful music. One of the men was labeled "one of the top ten accordion player's in the world" and "second in our nation." Not many people can say they have rubbed shoulders with that kind.

There were plenty of fun pub songs to keep the kids interested. Just 10 min. before the intermission we did have to take Sophie out for a run. And the kids lasted another 40-45 minutes after that. We were amazed. It was a lot of fun and sure beat sitting on the couch watching TV at home. In about 2 weeks we will have "one of the top ten" piano players in the world (from Italy) grace us with his presence. Not bad for a small town and all completely free!

Firsts

We are most happy for the fact that Sophie slept through the night for the first time since she switched to her Big Girl bed just short of 2 weeks ago. We woke this morning telling each other that it was a miracle and we were soooooo grateful.

Our first Cous-tasrophe! That's right! Neal warned Keri but she served Sophie couscous anyway. Just look at her lap! The table! The floor! Honestly, these pictures don't seem to do it justice.
Yesterday, Sophie went pee-pee in the potty for the first time! She tells us "potty" and wants to sit there so we let her. We are pretty sure it was a fluke but there was cheers and clapping and much merry making anyway.

Lastly, Keri signed up for and took her first (and probably only) canning class. It was on beans. Here she shows off her jar of kidney beans. Aren't you excited! A canner cost just short of $100 so Keri will be asking friends if she can borrow theirs when not in use. That's if she ever does this on her own. But isn't that jar of beans just amazing?!

Talking Machine

We are limiting Sophie's vocabulary development to her 10 most recent spoken and signed words (as seen in right column). She now has well over 100 spoken words, is speaking in single word and 2-3 word phrases, and, frankly, we are sick of bragging on her. So to save space and encourage humility we will only post the newer words.

We Finished!

With much time and effort we have finally put Sophie's big girl room together. We wanted her to change to her big bed early to make sure she was feeling safe and comfy by the time her little brother stole the crib. Neal became very handy with moving the furniture, hanging hooks, etc. and Keri enjoyed shopping (poor girl) and painting the dresser. Here's a peek at her new dwelling. We are experiencing shall we say...challenges at nap and bedtime since there are no longer bars to hold Sophie in. We are very sleepy and sore. We spent, at the most, 2 hours putting Sophie back in her bed repeatedly. She weighs 28 pounds and we do not lift weights regularly so it sucks after a while. In a week, she has only gotten her way once and Keri was the weak one. Only from lack of sleep, not lack of conviction. She also visits us in the middle of the night once or twice and thinks 6 a.m., as opposed to her usual 7:30 a.m., is a great time to rise and shine now. We are hoping daylight savings time will help with that because it will stay darker in the morning for just a bit. Our next project? Rhys' nursery!

How to Stay Sane: Wear Out Your Kid Before Your Kid Wears Out You!

Yes, I put Sophie on the treadmill, supervised and run it to try and wear her out. She's interested and I keep it to a walk. The girl has lots of energy.

More on Sophie

We have this potty training toilet in the garage for some future date. While Keri was prepping furniture for paint, Sophie decided to entertain herself for several minutes with this. I hope she is always so joyful about the potty.

Often when we get out the camera, Sophie repeatedly says "Cheese?!" and runs to get her camera. This usually ruins the shot we were trying to catch but it's sweet.

Just look at our kid make her way into mom and dad's big bathtub. She has such a cute bum. I absolutely adore it!

Rock On!

What's Going Down at our Place

Splish-Splash. We are enjoying scattered thunderstorms with tornando warnings just west of Fort Worth. Don't worry. We have our shelter and 72-hour kits ready for the season. Here Sophie is enjoying a nice puddle in our front yard walk way.


Shall we dance? Sophie and her parents have this tradition of dancing together often. We don't usually get dressed up but we were getting ready for church this morning (see Keri's freshly washed, wet hair?). Yes, that's John Denver in the background. Keri gets rather winded these days with being 6 months pregnant and whirling a cute, 27 pound child around. It's all totally worth it.


Stuck! She does escape eventually.

Sophie Quirks

When Keri brushes her teeth in the morning, Sophie will grab Keri's hair brush and rub the bristles across her tongue to "brush" her teeth too.

Yes, we know it's mid-February but Sophie while "reorganizing" her closet brushes against her Christmas shirts with the flashing lights that are motion sensitive and decides that is what she is going to wear today. She wore the Christmas green and red one with Rudolph and Santa right on the front to Home Depot and Hobby Lobby. I have to admit, it is the first time since Christmas that she hasn't put up a whining fight to get dressed in the morning.

We often sing the Carpenter's song, Close to You, to Sophie. You know, "Why do birds suddenly appear Every time you are near? Just like me, they long to be Close to you." We sing two of the verses and do the "Ahhhhhhhh Close to You" part twice after each one. Sophie loves to sing along with "You" for "Close to you" and the "Ahhhhhhhhh" part. She really tries to get the intonation in there too. It's Sooooo Sweet!

If You Haven't Got Your Health...

What a week! As posted below, Sophie got the stomach flu last Sunday and then just became a picky eater for the better part of the week. Keri was none to thrilled to catch the stomach flu on Tuesday night. Thank goodness, Neal stayed home on Wednesday to take care of Sophie and check in on Keri. Keri was pretty much back to normal by Friday. Neal got a little digestive funk going on at the end of the week but we are very happy to say that we are all better this Sunday. We were all able to attend church and even had several friends over for taco salad.

Neal has jury duty tomorrow and we are hoping he gets out of it. Nothing else really going on but regular life. We are just happy to be healthy and able once again.

Super Bowl and Super Parenting

Well, we spent our Sunday evening with Rudy and Becky eating all sorts of wonderfully bad foods and watching the Super Bowl. Carter and Kari, and their daughter, Kenzie, were invited over to join in the fun. They are REAL Steelers fans. They wore their jerseys and waved their "terrible towels" and Kari even made a cake (YUM!) with the Steelers and their insignia on it. Neal is a fan of the game and Keri rooted for the Cardinals to create opposition and side with the underdog. Sophie had fun running around the house and playing with Oma, Opa, Tracer, their dog, and Kenzie.

We got to bed a bit late for our sweet Sophie but life is like that sometimes. Sadly we woke to coughing and whimpering at 4 a.m. and saw that Sophie had thrown-up for the first time in her young life. For the next two hours approximately we held her and let her vomit into towels several times while the other parent cleaned up and got laundry going. Poor kid and poor us--no one loves the smell of vomit. She took it all in stride though. She'd sit up and heave and usually after 3 hurls she'd sign "finished" and we'd get the next towel ready. She finally was able to relax enough to get back to sleep without much more trouble. Poor Neal got up and headed to work as usual and Keri has been enjoying a rather chipper, sick kid who is keeping things down for now but isn't eating or drinking a whole lot either. The nurse said it probably wasn't too much junk food from last night but the flu since she wasn't eating much still. Well wishes to Sophie!

Beginning My 6th Month

Here is a bellylicious picture of me at the start of my 6th month. There is definitely a bump there. No! I mean in the front. I have a girlfriend, Toni, who is due in March, and her doctor says that we need to be big in the backside to help balance, otherwise we may topple over and hurt the baby. I love her doctor!

Family Time at the Park

Today was sunny and warmish, after a few cold days this week. We get so busy doing regular life stuff during the weekends that we forced ourselves to go have some fun at the park.

First Prayer

Today Sophie said her first prayer! Usually she tries to draw the spirit closer by repeatedly hushing whoever is offering the prayer, or if we are holding her, she enjoys poking our closed eyes with her finger. More recently, she has been holding her hands, palms out, over her eyes. It's quirky but at least she is not poking our eyes. So today at lunch, mommy tried to break the prayer up into smaller phrases so she could try and copy the words. It went something like this:

Mom: Dear
Sophie: Dee-uh
Mom: Heavenly Father
Sophie: He-duh
Mom: Thank you for the food
Sophie: hooood
Mom: In the name of
Sophie: (nothing)
Mom: Jesus Christ
Sophie: Je-juh
Mom: Amen
Sophie: Amen

Happily, Heavenly Father understands all His children's prayers. Good job, Sweetie! (If you are wondering what is on the plate in front of her, it's leftover meatloaf, ketchup, grapes, and crackers. See! It needed to be blessed!)

Winter Charm

If Heavenly Father was cleaning out the freezer yesterday with all our ice, then Heavenly Mother must of done some baking this morning! We got a fine dusting of powdered sugar--well, snow! Very light but very nice!

Good Job God!

Last night we had freezing rain followed by a short period of sleet and this morning we had sunshine. Everything was iced over and the trees looked SO beautiful. It looked as though every twig had been delicately dipped in glue and fine silver glitter or diamonds. It was breath taking! We took pictures but it just looks like grey wet stuff--totally not what we are actually seeing. We are also very glad to have cars for transportation rather than having to walk. Chunks of ice are sloughing off from power lines, phone poles, over hanging branches, and the like. Look out below!

In Honor of our Chinese Ancestors

Okay, I think there is only a grand-aunt that was half Chinese but still....we celebrated Chinese New Year in a toned down fashion! On Saturday, we cleaned out and organized our food pantry and emergency food storage as well as another catch-all cupboard. This to honor the tradition of thoroughly cleaning one's house to get rid of the old and bad and to welcome in a fresh new year. Then Sunday, we invited Opa and Oma over for dinner and played a game of Uno (thanks for the salad and cake!). Neal made red beans and rice for the first time and it was very yummy and VERY filling. Chinese celebrate Chinese New Year Eve by having a feast and playing games with their family that evening. And on Monday, we ate Chinese food because we are too frugal to hand out red envelopes with money and because we love food. Actually, our friend Kari, made a stir-fry (thanks!) and we ate with chopsticks. Enjoy the Year of the Ox!