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.