A Summary of Recent Events

• Garrett's arm was broken at school. He spent 6 weeks in 3 different casts, and is now finally fiberglass-free. He (and we) is very happy.
• We have doubled our rat population-a family at school needed to rehome theirs, as they had discovered their son was allergic. So their two girls (and their giant ratty skyscraper) came to live with our two girls. It has been very interesting watching them establish a pecking order (unfortunately Emily Dickinson-so named for her shy, homebody nature-my personal sweetheart, has landed on the bottom of the totem pole--she will be getting some special attention). They are all very sweet and well behaved, and after we've had some more time to train them they will be great pocket pets.
• Kiera has realized she can stand alone. She is THRILLED, but nervous about it. As soon as she shakes her jitters, I am sure she will take off walking. Here's hoping she stays nervous for awhile.
• Kiera was 11 months old yesterday. Yikes.
• Morgan has adopted a super-hero princess persona. This requires the wearing of pretty gowns AND capes. A biproduct of having an older brother, I think.
• We have planted many things for the summer, but have yet to get them in the ground. They have outgrown their seed trays, and are not happy about it.
• We planted an apple tree in the back yard. It grows 5 different varieties of apples.
• Troy is asleep on the sofa. His mouth is hanging open, and it's making him have obnoxious cartoonish breathing.
• In fact, everyone in the house is resting. Except me. I'm blogging.
• I am on-call for my first clients since I was pg w/Kiera. I'm anxious, but excited-she's "overdue" and could call any time.
• The school year is almost over which is wierd because I feel like I'm just getting into the swing of it.
• I made ridiculously good brownies and can't stop eating them.
• My parents have, in the last month, acquired 6 goats and a hive of bees.
• Garrett has taken to reading Morgan stories in the evening. I can't watch, because it's so sweet I'll start to cry.
• I am always humbled by the kindess and generosity of the people we know. I do not always feel I deserve it, often can't repay it, and am anxious for the day when my own time is less full and I can turn to someone else who's hands are always full of projects and young children, occupy said children for awhile and give HER flowers and candy.
• My K-1 math class hosted a lemonade stand at school-they planned it, prepped it, squeezed the lemons (I mixed it), sold it, made change (whether it was needed or not), and earned $60-they overshot their goal by more than double. They were raising money for prizes for the games they would host at the Gratitude Gala for school (last Fri), which were a huge success. They wanted everyone to earn a prize no matter what. I am very proud of them.
• There has been roadwork outside our house for the last week. They ripped a huge ditch alllll the way up the hill. They knocked on our door every morning at 7:30 to tell me to move my car before they completely blocked our driveway and house. They were noisy. They made our house shake and the things on our shelves rattle. I was proactive one night and moved the car ahead of time. The next day, they didn't block our driveway. They blocked the alley where I'd left our car.

Easter morning

Sadly, I forgot my camera when we went to the Stein's in the afternoon for egg-hunting, but here are the shots we took prior--our traditional Easter morning goody hunt (we don't fill the baskets, we hide the stuff throughout the house and they have to find it), brunch with the Easter Bunny, and our attempt at getting all three kids looking at the camera at the same time.

Kiera among the bunnies. They have been given many, many bunnies.

Morgan insisted their dresses match. Not coordinate. Match.


Our favorite in-town family resteraunt, Plum Delicious, invites the Bunny to brunch every year. The kids got to pick eggs from his basket. Morgan got a $5 coupon, and Garrett won a free meal!

I didn't bother rearraning the photos (blogger always loads them wrong) so this is earlier in the morning, as the kids were finding their goodies.

Kiera WANTS!!

Alright, this isn't Easter-just really cute.

About Kiera...

So much has happened in the last several weeks that I couldn't possibly put it all in one post, so I've decided to go child by child. I'll start with Kiera as she's the baby and by default the most interesting.
Kiera just turned nine months old. Yup, nine months. I know, crazy. Too fast. Where did the time go and all that. I don't like to think about it, actually, as in another few months I'll be all out of babies. When Kiera was five months, she began to push up onto her hands and knees, which was quickly followed by the standard rock-back-and-forth that precedes crawling. Oh goodness, we all said. Any time now. She'll be an early crawler, no doubt. She's so strong for her age (even her doctor said this).....................................
She finally started crawling a couple of weeks ago. She spent FOUR MONTHS rocking, belly flopping, dragging, and rolling herself around. For those in the yoga "know", she developed a mean downward facing dog. Even when she did start really crawling, she was very slow and tentative, alternating between crawls and flops-especially once she hit the hardwood. And she wouldn't follow me--if she really wanted something, she'd just flop down and cry.

She loves seeing her brother and sister when she wakes up-she doesn't look it here, but I promise, she was happy.

I have always said that she is a person that requires a strong motivation to persue a task or accomplishment. I think that, until recently, she just didn't see the point. She couldn't go very fast, didn't see a need to be anywhere but where she was, and she has these nifty giants who will carry her anywhere she does need to go-so why put forth effort that can be better spent picking miniscule specks of junk out of the carpet? Cause that there is an important endeavor.
Five days ago she found her motiviation. I don't know what it was, I think she may just have realized there's LOTS of places to pick miniscule bits of junk from--maybe she finally got the carpet thoroughly picked and needed greener pastured. Maybe she realized if she chases me, it's a lot harder for me to put off her requests. Perhaps she finally felt she could employ enough speed to make it fun. Regardless, five days ago she made up her mind-and got FAST. In the space of the last five days she has explored more of the house than the rest of her life combined (independently, that is), along with learning to pull up (she did it by accident several weeks ago and didn't see fit to repeat the process until now), cruise along furniture, and push anything mobile across the floor (toys, highchair, books, her piano, people). Oh, and she's decided the stairs look like fun, too.
So in the space of five days we have gone from "how cute, she's finally trying to crawl" to "Kiera come back here! Get Down! Stop pushing that! Let go of the cat!"
And oh, is she proud.

Immediately after she very stealthily consumed a quarter of a blue crayon. The tear is because I took it away.

She's also eating anything we put in front of her (and few things we don't...no nut allergies here!) and enjoying clucking her tongue. At the moment she's standing at the toybox banging away on the lid and clucking along, and blowing raspberries--I think she's composing her first song.
She's sweet and playful, funny and smart (when we ask for hugs and kisses, she complies-she has said several words and can repeat even more when she so chooses) and she sleeps like poo at night--but that's an entirely different post.

Whilst suffering from a high fever but still trying to play, she crashed

Random things....

• Garrett can read. He started learning in October, and is now probably at a 2nd grade level.
• Morgan wears dancing clothes all the time-even if she's freezing. When we watched the US figure skating championships, she donned her dancing clothes, grabbed a baby doll (it was the partners'), and spent about an hour "icing" around the living room. "But Mommy, we can't really skate because there's no ice in our living room."
• Yesterday on the way home from the zoo, Kiera started laughing. Hysterically. She laughed the whole rest of the way home, about 15 minutes. I have no idea why.
• I have rose bushes and climbing vines waiting to be planted. They've been waiting for 3 years.
• It's raining.
• I am having a difficult time not obsessively over-planning our upcoming Disneyland trip. At least I don't write daily schedules anymore.
• Troy is working today, and it's Saturday. That stinks.
• Kiera just woke up and she's only been asleep 1/2 hour. That also stinks.
• Last night we had beans and cornbread for dinner. One of my top 5 favorite meals, and costs less than $5 to make.
• Last night I dreamt that I ate a plate of spaghetti (not gluten-free), and when I realized what I had done, I got really scared. This is wierd because we've been gluten-free for so long I don't even think about it that much-and I never accidentally eat something with wheat in it.
• Kiera will turn 8 months while we're in CA-that makes me a little sad. Like she'll officially be a big baby instead of a little baby.
• Last night when I asked Morgan what she would like to do while the boys played Mario Bros, she immediately said, "Go upstairs and watch a movie with you and eat popcorn." So we did.
• I need to get to Costco and buy a couple grafted fruit trees before they are all gone.
• I also need to send in the rebates for our new cell phones.
• I might get to attend a homebirth in early March, if the mom is willing to wait for me to get back from DLand.
• Eucalyptus oil, diluted in olive oil, is the best cough supressant I've found.
• Troy overcame enormous odds to earn a bonus for his January performance at work.
• I have a new chocolate pie recipe that's super easy, not too unhealthy, and incredibley yummy. I may need to make it tonight.
• Garrett is fantastic at taking care of Kiera, and she loves it when he does. I have to remind myself he's only 6 and not leave her entirely in his care, as much as he wants me to. Right now he's helping her try to go back to sleep. Oh, wait, nope-they're in there playing. Oh well, they're both happy. He says she wants to get up and watch the movie with him. She has a huge smile, which I take to mean she agrees.
• Garlic has been shown in studies to be as potent an antibiotic as many perscriptions types.

That's all.

Holidays? When were the holidays?

As we age we all say the same thing at the same time every year, "wow, I just CAN'T believe how FAST this season has gone by...(say it with me) it just keeps getting faster every year!" Now while I don't necessarily wish to recite this particular litany, I will say this, "holy cow! It is difficult for me to conceptualize the rapidity of this and the last month of last year. I perceived that prior to this particular rotation round the sun, the festivities of the holiday season perhaps were a tad more prolonged." Totally different.

Over the last few weeks much excitement transpired within the walls of our home-Kiera turned the mystical magical 6 months old in December (and will turn 7 months tomorrow!) and mastered the art of sitting up. Since then she has been focused on rockin' out-on her hands and knees that is. We've been saying "she's gonna crawl any day now" for about two weeks. With her it's all about the motivation. She just hasn't found a good enough reason to do it yet. When she does, off she'll go! She's started sampling food, which is a mixed bag--she LOVES eating with us, and loves what she's tried so far (apples, bananas, and sweet potatoes), but unfortunately it doesn't love her. Her tummy is having some issues processing the new foods, and really we should hold off a few more weeks (little known fact-infant digestive tracts aren't finished developing until 9 months)....but I think our little sweetheart might begin to tremble, swell, turn green (baby MMAAAADDDDDDD) and rip out of her diaper if we stopped. She REALLY likes to eat. Luckily she's appeased by small chunks in a mesh pouch/feeder that she can chew and suck on while we eat. ALSO, she cut two new teeth! She now has all four front teeth, and enjoys rubbing them with her tongue and grinding them together (yikes!). Mommy isn't enjoying them as much while Kiera figures out what she can and CAN'T use them for.

Coincidentally, the same day Kiera cut her left upper tooth, Garrett lost his. WEIRD. He is now totally gap-faced on top, missing his opportunity to express his desire for two front teeth by a mere week and a half. Another milestone for big G-he made the decision to cut his hair. For the last couple of years, he has been in charge of his hairstyle-much to Troy's dismay. Sorry hon, you're still the only one who didn't think he looked super-fly with his wavy shag 'do. I sat him down two days before Christmas for a quick trim. Every time I asked if it was short enough, he's say, "it's a little bit short enough." "Does that mean you want it shorter?" "ya, a little bit." We had this exchange so many times I had to finally get out the clippers. The worst part was Troy's smugness-like he had won a battle. See, he has always felt that I pressured G into the shaggy look-but really, he wanted it that way. It was a bonus that I liked it, too. I don't think Troy really believed me every time I said it was his choice--until he came in and saw me wielding the clippers and sniffling. Just one more notch in the "growing up" belt.

Poor Middle Child Morgan. Not a lot going on for her this last month-she had her final dance class for this session, and we got some adorable video of her demonstrating what she'd learned. She still wears her "dancing clothes" whenever she has the opportunity. Her biggest piece of news would probably be the dollhouse she got for Christmas ("Oh look! A dollhouse! A dollhouse that's just for me!). We have a big dollhouse already, one Troy bought for me years ago. Last year we bought her dolls for it, and she's always allowed to play with it, but she knows it's Mommy's tiny house, and she can't do QUITE everything she'd like with it. It was terribly sweet, and a little sad, when her initial exclamations over her dollhouse were followed by a small sigh and, "I guess I can't play with Mommy's anymore." I reassured her that she could indeed still play with mine. Since she started playing with hers, she hasn't given mine a backwards glance.

January is always a tough month for us-recovering from the holidays plus being Troy's biggest "push" month at work, so we see less of him. I have taken on a bit more as well, adding the upper grade theater class to my teaching duties at school. I'm very excited about it, I love working with middle schoolers, but it's a very high-energy class and crew and getting their production of Hood (as in Robin) stage ready is going to take a LOT of work. At least we have until May.

Christmas was awesome, and will require a separate post which I probably won't ever write--but I will say that I haven't encountered many other families that could all reside in one house for 4 days without making each other insane. We had 15 people sleeping in our house, and it was so fun. Thank god for our big old house and its secret rooms-nobody even had to sleep in the living room! It was chaos and noise and mess, but it was worth it to see everyone in their PJ's Christmas morning.

And now we stumble into 2010, still rubbing our eyes and trying to catch up on the sleep we missed finishing off 2009! It just seems to go by faster every year!

Our walk in the wetlands was a little too much for her.

Big G (with his new haircut) displaying his gift for cramming an ungodly amount of frosting on a gingerbread cookie.

Kiera getting the giggles with Auntie Cissa

Morgan marveling at her new dollhouse (it talks and tells her what to do- c-REEE-py)

Playing with her new bumpy balls-she loves these things.

Day before Thanksgiving

It's the day before Thanksgiving--I feel like I should be doing nothing accept preparing for the feast. Unfortunately, between a house is chaos (orginizationally speaking), a week spent fighting a nasty virus as it rampaged its way through the house, school, swimming, preparing for Christmas (yes, already-it's going to be a big one), and working on the upstairs project, it seems a small trifle like a 15 lb turkey just isn't that high on the list.

That hasn't stopped me from making two grocery trips, menu lists, and 7 quarts of brine--which said bird is now bathing in. We just might not get around to cooking the bugger until Saturday or Sunday ;).

I kid. We have been swamped lately, we are indeed exhausted from said swamping, but we are foraging on and will sit down tomorrow to a delectable feast amid our clutter of everday stuff and Christmas decorations. I will spend all day stirring, mashing, roasting, baking, crushing, blending, a small part of the evening eating, and then I will collapse.

Fortunately we all came through the vicious virus and are happy with the knowledge that never again will we suffer through THAT yucky uckiness. Garrett was so dissappointed to miss school Monday, and it was looking like he would miss today as well, since Morgan had a minor relapse--but then a heroic mom from the program volunteered to take responsibility for him is we wanted to drop him off and pick him up. It was so odd, leaving him alone and coming home without him. Strange to think that most parents of kindergartners do that every day. He had a ball (especially since it was ice cream day), and talked non-stop all the way home about everything he did--but ended with, "I wish Morgan had been at school today. She would have thought it was really really fun." So sweet, especially after she had told me on the way to get him (after we'd talked about the fun things we'd done that morning), "I really want Garrett to be with us." I will remember their sweet words tomorrow when they are screaming at one another.

This week has been a real humsinger for Kiera, too. Not only did she have to ferry her way through rivers of snot during her first virus, she's cutting her second tooth today (her first came in 9 days ago). As I type she is asleep in the cradle in the living room, rather than in her bassinet in our bedroom. This is for two reasons-she has just about outgrown the bassinet (sad!), and she kept waking up with teething pain. Two teething tablets, some snuggling, and a few kisses later she seems to be resting much more comfortabley.

And with that I take myself to bed. With one pie down and the stuffing ready for the bird now resting in brine, I will need all my z's to get through the food prep left for tomorrow's feast. Pumpkin cheescake in a ginger-snap crust, YUM!

Too much to do.

I like being active. I like having things to do. I do NOT so much care for things I HAVE to do, or for being busy. Lately we have been very busy. Very very busy. It seemed to come on all at once, too, which is making it that much more difficult to adjust to. For instance, we used to average going out about two times during the week. Now we go out every day. That means getting dressed (in something other than sweats) every single day. That's a lot of clothes. Which becomes a lot of laundry. Which makes us even busier! But alas, we shall adjust-we are in fact getting used to it, but there will always be a smidge of remorse for the pajama days of new family-hood.

The positives of being busy all the time-the kids are really enjoying all the new activities they get to participate in with school and all the new friends they are making. I am enjoying the village feel of our school and the fact that we now know everyone well enough that I can run down the hall without hauling all three kids, so long as there's a parent in the room where I left them. The kids are comfortable enough that it doesn't bother them for me to pop out for a bit, and Kiera just soaks up all the attention the parents give her.

Garrett is taking swim lessons now, in a saltwater pool here in town. He loves it but is still struggling with fear of sinking. It's sadly funny as he is the tallest kid I've seen there (he surprised his teacher by proving he could indeed touch the bottom), but at the beginning of class he clings to the teacher like a toddler (or a cat trying to avoid a bath). It only takes him a few minutes to warm up and be more confident, so I'm sure that by the end of his session he'll be swimming passably well. Morgan is not as excited as the rest of us as she doesn't get to be in the pool, too. But then Saturday rolls around, and she gets to don her dancing dress and shoes for dancing class. And while she often drifts away from the group and does her own thing seemingly ignoring the teacher, at home she demonstrates what she's learning with grace and enthusiasm (meaning she can skip and wiggle with the best of them).

Kiera is rounding the bend to 5 months old, and reached a milestone last night-she sat up! She did it quite well, too, so now all we need to do is find adequate motivation for her to keep doing it. She doesn't keep doing something unless she sees a need for that particular behavior. Take sleeping through the night, for example-she did it for awhile, tried it out, but as she can sleep whenever the heck she feels like it she has decided it really isn't necessary to do so much of it all at once. Last night she was awake for an hour for seemingly no reason. She wasn't asking to eat, wasn't complaining (unless we tried to get her to sleep), just wasn't asleep. Oh, and why is there a reason to keep sucking on a binky when you can use a thumb? And why keep sucking on your own when you can reach Mommy's? Which is apparently much more satisfying.

Oh, and we were finally able to talk her into taking a bottle! She hasn't had one since she was 6 wks. She really didn't like it then, and there was no need to force the issue, so we didn't. Saturday we kept offering (milk in freezer needed to be drank), trying different temps, positions,and nipples, and were finally able to persuade her--though she wasn't pleased. She had a very annoyed look the whole time, a real "WHY are you making me do this? I'll humor you this once, but really folks, this is ridiculous." It tickled the kids though, as they were able to take turns feeding her.

Oh ya! Halloween has happened since our last post! That was lots of fun, spent again with our friends in town who do up their whole yard and scare kids all night (Troy helps). Morgan made a truly beautiful Cinderella, and Garrett a dashing Indiana Jones. Kiera was a lion for about 5 minutes, but she was a very cute lion!