Pictures and Peek-A-Boo

While visiting with my girlfriends and oblivious to anything but diaster in the backyard where the children were playing, Caelen ran up to me and handed me my camera, kinda like she was saying, "Here's your camera back mom." So I turned that puppy on and found 68 pictures just like this:

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Okay, tell me that's not the sweetest picture you've ever seen! She still takes the prize for the happiest baby even though she's super grump trying to learn to get around on her own. She's quick to forget frustrations and offense and returns to her normal self (smiley & laughing) almost instantly.

My ham! She's getting so big and smart. She got her first patch from Awanas at church and her teachers tell me she is just so well-behaved, well mannered, polite, a good sharer and quiet! Go figure that last one....

Addison never crawled so fast to date as when she saw the first fire of the season in our fireplace. She crawled half way across the living room in a matter of about 30 seconds and crawled right up. Caelen wanted to know what all the fuss was about, but of course she's been a fire lover her entire life as well. Both girls spent their first months often in front of a fire watching it's hypnotizing effects.

And now a new skill - Peek-A-Boo!

Videos for your spare 3 minutes today

Here's just a little bit more joy from the youngest during the horsey ride song. She starts vibrating and raspberrying like crazy.

If the way Addie drives this walker is any indication of the type of driver she is, it's gonna be awhile before she's getting her license ;) This girl is crazy. She flies all over the house now, following me everywhere. It's like she's walking with a massive intertube around her waist, I think that may be how she sees it LOL. Anyway she recently realized she can go almost anywhere and get to almost anything, so a new favorite: Mama's junk drawer!
In the video my Caelen is enjoying her rainbow sherbet cone since we had just gotten home from a family date night. It was the first time Thomas and I had dinner out since our anniversary in May and it was greatly enjoyed. Caelen was such a doll, we felt ice cream cones were in order.

As for the Addison September Madness, add in saying "Mama". I love it! And she has pulled herself to a stand. Watch out world, she just might be walking by Christmas. Gotta keep up with the sister you know ;) If Addison DOES walk early, then I'll be convinced that my kids really are just precocious and that I truly do not push them. Poor Addison has had to figure out almost everything on her own since I'm so busy and all over the place and she's still keeping a good pace. We'll see.

I think Addison should be Toto.

Who knew September would be "Addison's Month"? She decided 7 months old was a good time to start doing everything and her little milestone calendar has a new event on it almost every day now!
The day of my last post Miss Addie started crawling and everyday she gets better. We're witnessing multiple advances before she flops on the floor and waves all her limbs about. She started babbling and making Caelen very excited when she thinks she recognizes a word. Addison is happiest standing, does it for long stretches and often lets go completely, thinking she should just be able to do this thing. Now she's walking while holding our hands, and I didn't think it was possible, but I think she saves her biggest smiles for the moments her little feet are stepping across the floor. I've heard it three times from strangers this week and I agree, What a doll baby!

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Ask Caelen if she's anything: a goofy girl, one big tomato (she eats a lot of them), a little froggy and she's likely to answer, "No Mommy!! I'm a whole Caelen."

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Fall is here, calendar-wise and weather-wise. I thought summer would give us one last Hurrah. My mom kept telling me the weather forecast said 100 degrees for about 5 days, but everyday would pass and would be surprisingly cool and shock us all. By cool, of course, I mean 85, but that's a far cry from the awful heat wave they warned us about. The nights are cool and we slept with our windows closed last night for the first time in months. This morning is cold, and I'll probably begin the spring-fall routine of dressing in multiple layers because you never know what's going to happen around here. Good old Mediterranean climate. Us and Chile..... and the Mediterranean of course.

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I may have mentioned that the horse for Halloween idea went out the window as soon as she saw a Dorothy dress at Target. My thoughtful and precious girlfriend Courtney found some "ruby slippers" on mega sale at a kid's store and I dug out some blue socks to complete her outfit. The only thing missing was any knowledge on Caelen's part of who Dorothy was! She's never heard of her. So when we tried her outfit on yesterday at her request, I asked her if she's like to know who Dorothy was.

We spent the afternoon watching a film that I haven't seen in literally about 20 years. Talk about memories!! I used to watch that movie at least once everyday of my life for years dreaming of being Judy Garland. Here's a little secret, I used to tell everyone Judy was my grandma when I was in the first grade. I don't know how many kids believed me, but I believed me, so who cared? Yesterday I remembered all the songs and all the emotions I used to experience when I watched it. So strange, so fun. And now Caelen is so excited to be Dorothy.

Like Father Like Daughter

The first thing Caelen did when she received this awesome tool belt from her Grandma Faith was announce that she needed to work on the playhouse. Which makes perfect sense since the only time in the past year that she's ever seen her daddy with his tool belt on is when he is doing that exact thing.

As for this one, all you have to do is show her a camera and this is what you get :)

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7 Month Stats:

Addison really despises baby food, so at this point we're just feeding her whatever we're eating, interspersed with baby food I bought and don't want to waste. She's still trying to master feeding herself. The problem comes with the transfer from the fist to the mouth, but she's making progress.

She's getting on her hands and knees and rocking now! She's just so close.

Yesterday she starts making the "B" motion with her mouth. No sound, just air but she's getting that "Ba" down.

I can say she officially babbled for the first time yesterday as well. She shouted "MaMA!" from the baby swing (total fluke) and Caelen got so excited, "She said Mama!!"

She has pulled herself up to standing so many times by now, but there's always been a little bit of help or she hasn't gone all the way up. So I can't mark it on her calendar yet :) but she totally could if she wanted to. And ALL she wants to do is stand and take steps. I've never met a more wiggly baby. I don't even know if Caelen was this wiggly or constantly grasping for you so she could stand up. Everything is a means to an end at this point and that end is standing.

Here she is rocking out to a song on the computer during breakfast.

Stick a lightbulb in her ear and it might light up

Thomas: Caelen, where do you get all your energy?

Caelen (without missing a beat and super-matter-of-fact): My tummy.

We get hand-me-downs a lot. I LOVE it. We recently got some hand-me-downs with little hand-print keepsakes. You cement the child's handprint, one for when they're 2, another for when they're 3. So I'll give the Age 2 to Addison, since Caelen is almost done with that stage of life, and Caelen will get to do the Age 3.

Well she's not too keen on sharing. She wants both and doesn't care what kind of explanation I give. So today she grabs the tin off of Addie's dresser and says, "I don't want her to have it, I'm sending it to jail with Jesus." I informed her Jesus wasn't in jail. She asked where He was and I told her Heaven so she said she was sending it to Heaven to be with Jesus as she shoves it under Addison's crib. I'm looking totally confused at this point and she points under the crib and says, "That's heaven under there. That's where Jesus is."

That's right, we got a little bit o' heaven right here in our house.

Bad guys go to the can.... the trash can!

As Caelen was having me read through her Picture Bible with her we were discussing Moses. Basically how he was in a basket but one day he'd grow up and make the Pharaoh stop hurting God's people. Pharaoh was a bad king etc. So we had all the basics down. We turn the page and there's Moses as a grown man.
She gets this excited look of realization and says, "There's Moses and he's a big boy! Now he's gonna throw Pharaoh in the trash!!!"
Maybe you just had to be there.

Caelen was also dicussing her red birthmark she has on her right pointer finger. She told me she didn't want it there. I told her I was sorry but it's kinda like the color of you hair or eyes, you don't get to choose. And she went on a mile a minute, "My hair and eyes are brown, but nothing's red, red like that chair, nothing's red. We don't have red, but I have red on my finger and I don't want it on my finger."
She didn't seem too distressed and was riding on her toy car happily within seconds.

The Old Man is Snoring & Little Johnny Wants to Play

Well, whether the playhouse was ready for weather or not, it came. I've never experienced a September storm like this (or one at all?). After being awakened at 1:00am because I thought someone had finally nuked San Francisco and I was just hearing the explosion, we spent the night enjoying the rare sound of thunder and watching our bedroom light up until the morning. Our window was open and we could smell and hear the rain. And we were amazed when the lightening to thunder count was 15 but it was still lighting up our room. The next day looked like this almost all day long...

and Thomas and Caelen had to take refuge under the eves when the rain started up again later that afternoon. Judging from the talk around town I think most people really enjoyed the change of pace. I know we did.

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... and what you can't see are the three bags of cucumbers, one bag of bell peppers and 2 other watermelons in our fridge. Yes, we're swimming in produce. But that's about it, as this time of the month is when I'm praising the Lord for stored up deer meat in the freezer and produce from the garden because every bill comes due at once and I'm counting the days until the next paycheck. I'm also trying to figure out how to make a fun new recipe out of venison and tomatoes for the fifth time that week....

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I forgot how hard this stage is, when all the baby wants to do is stand up. So they're clambering all over you, pulling hair and clothes just to stand up and be so proud. You hold them and they wiggle because they want to go but you set them down and they cry because they can't.

I'm smiling in this photo because Addison isn't whining, which is about all she does these days because she is smack dab in the aforementioned predicament.

My precious girls love the camera. They both pose in their own special way :)

Minutes later Caelen began singing Jesus Loves Me. Many months ago (I believe in one of my Jan 09 posts) I have a video of Caelen singing this while she's on time out. Here it is again 8 months later, complete with hand motions.

This & That

Welcome to the Random Blog written by a lady who can't find a theme to this hodge podge today. But here it is anyway...
This is Gigantor, the massive Brandywine tomato we found about a week ago in our tomato forest. To give you a good idea of how big it is, those other tomatoes are the size of the large tomatoes you see in the grocery store. Yes, yes, it was massive and I couldn't bring myself to eat it because I just wanted to admire it and I'm ashamed to admit, it rotted on my counter and ended up in the compost pile. It's a sad ending for such a beautiful piece of produce.

This past weekend our church celebrating 100 years of God's faithfulness. Hessel started in 1909 as a little Sunday school for the farmer's kids who couldn't get out of town to a church on Sundays. My Caelen got to celebrate on a pony ride. She LOVED it!

Here are the girls watching their Papa work on (what else?) the playhouse. It has a door!! There's no knob and it needs weather stripping but it's a door that the kids just love opening and closing. Soon, oh I pray, that thing will be closed in and ready for weather.

Here's my bag head. She (and I) were really getting a kick out of how silly this was. She kept telling me to take more and more pictures. This was the best in my opinion. Then we had a reprieve with basket head.

Hope you're not bored and about to click the "x" in the upper right hand corner. Here's a couple videos. The first is Addison trying to crawl. She's so determined. The best part and not on video unfortunately is when she gets tired of trying and lays face down on the floor and doesn't move. Our next video is my smart cookie singing her ABC's, but don't ask her to sing them with you..... you'll see why...

Quick Pics & Updates from a tired Mom

Because these days I need toothpicks to hold my eyes open, I'm reheating the coffee at 2:30pm, and I'm dreaming the moment my eyes close, I'm giving you a few pictures, with small captions. Enjoy!
Hello, my sister fed me!

This goofball asked me today while we were driving, "Mom, can I please put juice in my nose?" After laughing hysterically for about 5 minutes I replied, "Baby, if your nose can drink that juice out of your sippy cup, then go ahead."

Yes, standing, I know, I don't know what happened to my newborn either....

First time in the big tub! The girls bath together now!

Quick updates:

*Caelen's newest favorite movie- Mary Poppins (Mary Puffins) Favorite song- Spoonful of Sugar so Mommy has had to memorize all the words.

*Addison made her first forward crawl two days ago. She goes up on her hands a tip toes (think downward dog yoga position) and put her knee down and moved forward.

*Addison fed herself a puff for the first time today! It's taken about two weeks of practicing 3 times a day because she prefers to be fed ;)

*Caelen really wants to be a horse for Halloween. No idea why, I would think Princess, fairy, or even some kind of friendly monster or dinosaur. No, a horse.

Just Another Day at the River

Hi!
Saturday was a picture perfect day for the Russian river. It was a good 105 degrees and the river water was freezing! Nothing will ever stop Caelen from diving in!

Look at how thrilled Addison is to be with her boring old dad. But I have to cut him some slack, he's got a nasty cold and didn't know if he'd even come out with us. We were glad he did :)

Caelen and Grandpa are always on the hunt for something; seashells, rocks, whatever it is, they always search like true treasure hunters. Like it is serious business folks. This day it was rocks that they could see on the river bed below. Later when Grandma took over the job, it became rocks with algae.

With frequent talks of budgeting for Christmas, a December birthday party and buying a Halloween costume, it is so refreshing to get away and enjoy a true summer weekend while they last.

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.