Random fun

This, my friends, is poison ivy. Columbia is lousy with the stuff. Take heed!





How hard is it to get my two babies in the same picture with happy expressions? Darned near impossible.





Amedeo's new motto: when in doubt, remove the couch cushions and strew them about the floor to make 'pig dens.' I'm starting to feel like I live with a poltergeist.




When I can pry Amedeo away from his pig dens and tv watching, mostly he wants to hang out by the stream. You know, just in case something needs to be stabbed with a stick.




You might wonder what Celeste was doing while Amedeo was doodling in the stream. Plotting her next coup?



Hey, mom! Let's play a joke on Amedeo while he's sleeping!






xoxo -- Brenna

Long Afternoons

The days are long, but the years are short. That seems to be what is happening to us around here. Celeste naps for less than an hour all day, and for a 10 month old, that isn't enough sleep. I'm pulling my hair out trying to come up with activities for the zillions of hours that she is awake.

As you can see, Amedeo is sleeping on the couch. He never does that!!! I took them for a walk this afternoon. He passed out shortly after arriving home.




Instead of sleeping, Celeste prefers to stick pretzels into the scanner.




I suppose I can see why she isn't sleeping much. In the last two weeks, she has learned how to pull up and 'cruise' on the furniture, cut four teeth, and said her first word (cat). Maybe she'll be tired in June.



xoxo -- Brenna

Sunday chores

We have many things to do today. Exciting things like, clean out the cat litter boxes, check the mailbox that hasn't been checked all week. Grocery shopping, laundry. You know how I feel about this....blech!
So, we decided to get our backpacking tent out instead. A friend is hosting a family camp night in her yard, so we're checking the tent for structural integrity.








Maestro is resting after he caught a vole. Tiring work, being a cat.




Amedeo is digging for dinosaur bones in his sandbox. I made chicken soup this week and he begged me to put the bones in his sandbox.








The tent looks good. We have to decide whether we actually want to sleep in it in May or not. I know what I'm voting for.


xoxo -- Brenna

New uses for Cool Whip

I was the co-op parent for Amedeo's class on Thursday, which means I get to play with him and his friends in the classroom.  It also means that I bring the snack.  Snack is predetermined by the teacher.  She coordinates it with the lesson of the day.  On Thursday, he learned about butterflies, so I brought apples, bananas, vanilla wafers and cool whip, which I styled into fruit butterflies. 

Cool Whip is something I remember from my childhood.  It's probably not the healthiest of foods, wait, is it considered a food??  But, I think it might work for Amedeo as a learning tool.

He is a reluctant to practice writing letters, and since we have almost a metric ton of cool whip left over from school, I thought we could use it to entice him into writing. 


He was amused by it enough to try!  And trying is good. 




 You have to lick your finger after each letter.  Motivation!






How do you erase?  Use your face!





You might be wondering, "What was Celeste doing during all of this?"  Sitting in her high chair, hoping that some cool whip might fly over in her direction.




With any luck, Amedeo will move on to pencil and paper before he's 35, when a grocery list written in cool whip might be a little odd.


xoxo -- Brenna

Test post

This post is a test, as you can see from my clever title. This will hopefully be the first of many posts possibly about dinner, probably about the children.
I got a new app that will allow me to blog from my iPad. This is the first post from that.




I made a pizza with chicken sausage. And then I doused it with hot sauce and washed it down with beer. Amedeo couldn't wait for the dough to rise, so I cooked him a sausage instead. He has requested pizza for breakfast tomorrow. Ok!!




Maybe I'll shoot for a more entertaining topic next time. Maybe I'll just photograph all of our meals instead.
xoxo -- Brenna

February 2012 Update

Hello, all! This photo summarizes a bunch of things that have been happening in our lives.















As you can see, Celeste is excellent at sitting. She is very happily eating solid food. I haven't used purees this time. She eats what we eat, just in smaller pieces. Her favorite food is oranges. She can clean a wedge of orange peel in no time flat! Almost any food is fun to wear. Yesterday she learned that mashed potatoes are good for getting an even coating all over the skin and hair. Our floors have never been filthier!!!

We have been having picnics in our family room. With dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are a big part of our lives lately. Amedeo is a bit of a dino nut.


Our little Celeste having a food riot. It is fun to fling, wear and smear. I think that some of it goes in her mouth.


I find this hard to believe, but Amedeo has had his 4th birthday! Eek! This was a little family party with a few cupcakes...



The next day, we did a little dino birthday party with a few children he wanted to invite.
Here's a picture of the dino party favors....



And, I made him a dino cake! I usually go for taste over looks, but this time, I managed to find an easy way to do both.



Here's a window into our dilemma: How do you keep a 7 month old away from the 4 year old's tiny legos? Put the 4 year old in a box, or put the legos in a box? We've tried both...so far, legos in a box work ok. Once Celeste is crawling, we'll have to rethink our plan.



Here's Amedeo eating breakfast in his tent. Celeste can roll around well enough to get anywhere she'd like to be. Mostly, she wants to see what Amedeo is doing in his tent.

September is here!

I can't believe that September is here! I am looking forward to the cooler weather. I am not looking forward to the trees losing their leaves...then we see our nemesis, Walgreens. Amedeo starts preschool on Tuesday. He is so excited. He talks on his pretend phone, telling people, "oh, no, I can't come over today, I have preschool!" What a tease!

Celeste is doing well. She continues to be a very smiley baby. We will never tire of toothless grins...even at 2 am, they are still cute. Ask me in 6 months if I'm tired of getting up 2 or more times at night. Ha!

Amedeo is surprisingly good-natured about his sister. I think he mostly views her as another audience. He wants her to come with him everywhere so she can see him do stuff. Just wait until she can crawl and mess up his trains. Then the gloves will come off!











Even now, there are still lots of sleeping baby cuddles. I don't remember when Amedeo started taking naps in his crib, but I am still enjoying this time. Of course, not much gets done during the day....who needs to mop the floor when it keeps getting dirty? Foolish parents!

I miss knitting. I miss fitting into my pants and shirts. If you see me, and I'm wearing ugly clothes, it's just because I'm cheap, and I don't want to buy bigger clothes to get by until I lose the last 15lbs. My chocolate chip cookie habit might be impeding my progress a teensy bit. Ah well....