Small and Growly Bear

Here's my Growly Bear.
She makes one of three sounds: Raspberries, Shrieks to high heaven, and growls.

Biggest Spider I've EVER Seen

Oh my goodness, this picture makes me gag and almost vomit each time I see it (HATE HATE HATE snakes, bugs, spider etc.) But I took this picture this afternoon in my backyard. I absolutely had never seen anything like it....

I had to look up what kind of spider this is. This thing was huge!! at least 2 inches long. It is an Argiope. The web was facsinating as well, with it's obvious thick zig-zag pattern and apparently they're very well known for it. They pop up and are very active in the last week of August, make their intricate webs in tall grass (it was among a lavendar type plant I have) and they're carniverous spiders, eating grasshoppers or wasps etc. Ugh. I identifed it easily because they're known by their yellow and black striped abdomen and striped legs which they hold together to make it look like they only have 4.

This was a textbook Argiope and Thomas sprayed that darn thing with raid while I ran in the house and tried not to gag. Makes me not ever want to go in my backyard again!

I think you're thinking of Jesus, honey

Things to know prior to the story so that we're on the same page:
1. Addison cannot self feed. She can get toys in her mouth, but her soft puffs she can't maneuver into her mouth.
2. Caelen rarely shares anything with her sister. In my presence she will yell, "No sister!" and take things that I've given to Addie, away.

So given this prior knowledge I leave the girls in the playroom so I can go move a load of laundry. Addison has access to a couple large toys, the play dough that Caelen is enjoying is about 3 feet away. (Addison cannot move from the sitting position either.)
When I come back in the house Caelen comes traipsing out of the room, chatting it up with me. We meander back into the playroom and I can't even barely remember what I see, all I know is Addison choking on play dough. She's got a big wad on the floor next to her and she's gagging. (Caelen later tells me she shared her play dough with Addison, go figure!) I reach in and pull some out but she's still choking, so I flip her over for the Heimlich. More play dough comes out. All the while I'm explaining to Caelen that Addison could die if I don't get this play dough out of her mouth. Caelen nods in understanding.
Finally all is well, the play dough has either been swallowed or is in a slimy pile on the floor. I announce, "Okay, she's fine." And Caelen begins to dance around the room asking, "Is she risen from the dead Mom?"

Who would have thought the Heimlich would have come in so handy? Don't become a parent without it. I used it at least 5 times on Caelen in her first year of life. Given a breathing problem and a love of food, she had many choking incidents. And now Addie. UGH!

This is the way the ladies ride

Let's just start with this video because it's truely the sweetest thing. Addison's favorite song and Caelen's favorite Daddy game:



On Saturday I took the girls to the beach after reading the weather report that the high would be 81, I thought, "Sweet!" packed us up and headed out. Yeah..... maybe there's a Bodega Florida where it was 81, because in THIS Bodega it was 55 and windy! We froze our butts off but Caelen had a blast until the Sea Gulls got her ziploc bag of veggie straws and we decided to call it good.

Tell me that isn't the most devilish grin. What a peanut!!

She ran all over, probably why she insisted she wasn't cold, and collected sand from all around to accomplish her collection of about 25 sand castles surrounding our blanket.

Addison enjoyed her slippers for awhile.

I'm so thankful it's only about a 40 minutes drive for the girls to enjoy the coast, but I can't help but wish it was actually warm like a beach should be. Oh well!

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Caelen and I still snuggle most nights on her rocking chair before bed and if she finds herself under the covers without it she almost always jumps up and hollers, "I forgot snuggles!" I asked her tonight if she would always snuggle with me; if when she was really old and tall would she still snuggle with me. She assured me Yes, so I'm holding you to that sweetie. When you're old and reading this blog and you see this entry, I'm expecting some snuggles girlfriend :)

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Little Miss Addie is learning how to feed herself puffs (still haven't had a successful transfer of food from fist to mouth) and drink from a juice cup (one night she got a full cup into her mouth and sucked away on that thing so happily but that's been the extent of it.) She can move all around on her stomach, every which way but forward. She's really good at push ups and a backwards scoot. And she's old enough now to protest when a toy is taken away so Caelen is already getting reprimanded for taking her sister's toys away which she does almost constantly. But the nicest thing is sometimes I can put them in a room together on the floor with some toys and they'll be content in each other's company for a good half an hour.

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So the follow up to Caelen's theology entry is encouraging. Driving in the car yesterday and listening to the radio, Chris Tomlin's "I Will Rise" was on and she caught the lyric, "He is risen from the dead..." She shouts out, "He is risen from the dead!!" I said, "Yes baby!" She says in the most relieved voice, "I'm so happy because He is back."

More Theology from Caelen

So Sunday we're driving home from church and I think I must have told Caelen to be kind to her sister or something along those lines and our conversation goes like this:
Caelen: "Mom.... I can't be kind!"
Me: "Why not baby?"
Caelen: "Because Jesus is so dead and I can't be kind"

At this point I'm thinking someone told her that Jesus could help her to be kind and she's feeling contrary like she is most of the time these days. She knows Jesus isn't dead, she's talked about it alot so I'm not overly concerned about a misunderstanding at this point. I know she's just being difficult :)

Me: "Baby, Jesus is not dead."
Caelen: "Yes He is! He's so dead." (Said with all the exasperation and attitude of a 2 year old)
Me: "Jesus DIED, honey, but God raised Him on the 3rd day."
Caelen: "No Mom, He's so dead and I can't be kind."
Me: "Alright baby, we'll talk about this later"

Sister, Sister

Sister, Sister, Never were there such devoted sisters....

The girls' doctor says they look like sisters even though they look so different. I don't know. You can decide for yourself :)

Poor little Miss Addie took a pretty bad fall today. Caelen and I were spending the day with one of my friend's daughters. She is such a sweetheart, great with the kids and about 12 years old. Anyway, she was helping me bring the girls and all our junk we're always schlepping around, into her house. She was carrying Addison in for me and I was right behind her but walked in the kitchen to see Addison perched on a bar stool about 3 feet off the tile floor and before I could reach her she fell face first onto the tile. I barely grabbed her arm as she hit.

Everything seemed fine, she didn't cry too bad, her neck strength was perfect and she didn't get sleepy. Within an hour she was smiling, playing and raspberrying like nothing ever happened. And now she has a huge goose egg on her forehead above her eye and on her cheek, and Mommys still a little queasy in the stomach. But hopefully she's just fine.

She loves dogs by the way. And a new game of tearing things out of the cupboard.

Addison is scooting now.... sideways, but it's still locomotion! She can get up on her hands and knees, then she digs her left foot into the ground and totally moves her whole body to the right. Everyday she seems much better at it than the last. Now my mom and I are taking bets on how soon before she'll be crawling around.

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Since I have a little shadow, a 37" shadow to be exact, Lord knows I never even so much as go to the bathroom by myself. So one day I'm doing my thing and in walks Caelen, leaning on my legs, chatting away and suddenly she looks at me, squints her eyes, cocks her head to the side and says, "Do you want a little prize-oh-wee, yes or no?" I could not for the life of me figure out what she was saying. This went on everytime I used the bathroom, so finally I just said, "Yes!" So she slowly backed out of the bathroom. Now whenever someone wants to be alone we say, "Oh you want some Prize-oh-wee huh? ;)

Caelen is so proud of her latest accomplishment that she announced to me, "Mom! I'm learning how to learn!" She is, in fact, writing a few letters :) They're in the first stages of course, an E looks like 2 1/2 E's stacked on top of each other. The H and A are sometimes hard to differentiate. But she's got H, A, E, O, & I in her repertoire. I'm so proud!

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I'm sad it's taken me this long to write another blog. What with reading two books, doing two studies, raising two kids, working two jobs, trying to exercise, taking dance, being blessed to help in ministry at church, and trying to have a social life I have just enough time to sit down and check recent status updates on Facebook. Then it's up and about with laundry, dishes, meals, being a mom, a wife, and whatever other errands and chores are calling my name.

It's a good life, but I have known I'd been too busy to blog, so I would occasionally write a couple word sentence reminding me of what to blog about next time I found five minutes. This blog itself has been written over the course of 2 hours, with dinner, baths, baby food, dressing for dance class, and such going on at the same time. So hopefully it won't be quite as long until the next one since there always seems to be something going on that I could blog about and have written down for posterity.

Now we're Cookin'! I mean, baking...

The story of how she came to be in this get-up goes as follows:

We spent Tuesday afternoon with Grandpa Bob and Grandma Faith while the corn was getting harvested, blanched and frozen the girls and I were just hanging around on the "farm". Apparently Bob mentioned we'd be having scalloped potatoes and ham to which Thomas replied that his wife had an amazing recipe. Long story short a few hours later I'm making dinner (was more than happy to by the way) and my chef's assistant is right there by my side.

Grandma and Grandpa made sure we were quite comfortable in the kitchen and even outfitted us with aprons (personally I'm an apron wearer. I love them, but only cute ones, of course.) I mentioned Caelen needed one her size since she literally helps me every night.

Got a call this morning from Grandma Faith who had a present for Caelen. It was this apron and hat set complete with a kid size rolling pin, wooden spoon, pot holder and glove, and a towel. Before we had driven down their dirt road on our way out she had everything on and she went into the library and yes, even Target outfitted the way you see her here. It's really needless to say she got a lot of smiles and attention. She also informed anyone who might glance her way that we were making cookies when we got home. So we did.

As staged as these photos may look, she truely did all these tasks. I assisted only in placement and making sure the cookies weren't gonna turn out to be the size of my face. Otherwise, she was on it.

We did a chocolate chip cookie batch and then some simple sugar cookies (so she could use her rolling pin pictured here near a regular sized one.)

And bless her heart, lil' mama even cleaned the counter of her own accord. I think she may turn out to be a wonderful chef or baker. Then I can say that I always knew it, cuz back in the day she loved to help me, and even before then, she's always loved food more than anything. My little Italian.

The cookies were perfection by the way. Definitely an awesome way to spend an afternoon.

Bright-Eyed Binkie Baby

It's like she sees a camera and becomes the proverbial deer :)

Addison has been playing with toys alot more and Caelen has become our little dancer. This girls got moves and I'm seeing some contemporary dancing in her future. Of course she loves an audience just like her mom always did and uses the phrase, "Watch this guys," more than any other combination of words currently.

Mom, on the other hand, is beginning to feel that the excuse, "I just had a baby," isn't cutting it anymore, especially since at this age with Caelen (well, in a couple of weeks) I was rocking a bikini on the shores of Poipou Beach. Soooooooo... any chance to get some cardio, I'm on it and I've been doing pilates for the past two days which is about as long as I stick to any workout routine so I'm proud.

Basically, my body is feeling it and I'm feeling old! Either that or like I need an adjustment from my chiropractor. In any case, this old body ain't what it used to be. Especially when the ab routine doesn't burn or feel like I got a workout, except that my C-section insicion hurts like nobody's business. Thomas thought I was being a whimp, until I told him that I could show him exactly where on my insides that my body got split in two 6 months ago.

Speaking fo 6 months ago, I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around my youngest being 6 months (not because that makes me feel old) because we pushed Caelen so much more than we do Addie. When you have one kid, and it's your entire life, you find out every trick in the book that that baby could be doing by now and you make them get on it. With the second, one day they're sitting up and you're thinking, "Should you be doing that already? I thought you were only 3 weeks old."

So while 6 month old Caelen was in Hawaii feeding herself some baby toast and mimicking us dipping it into our olive oil and vinegar, Addison is still making faces at baby food that has the slightest texture and not interested in holding her bottle. I'm absolutely not comparing the girls (it simply has to do with what I introduced when) except to say that Addison feels younger to me and therefore I can't imagine she's about to hit the half a year mark already.