The Last Day of January

I came in to get Mimi from her nap today, and found her without her pants. Hmm. She's never done that before--I didn't even know she could.



As always, looking pretty pleased with herself. Miriam 1/31/11:



Valentine's came early from Grandma today! (Hopefully she doesn't mind that we opened it early!) Leiden was very excited to get a new book that she can read all by herself.



And the girls were so excited to get dragons to go with the book.



Mimi appreciated the bendy-ness of the card she was sent!



I tried to get pictures of the girls with their cards, too, but they did not turn out. I think Mac was literally cross-eyed in the one I managed to get of her looking at her card. But she did go hang it on the wall in her room! Thanks so much, Grandma, and Happy Valentine's to you, too!

Donuts and Birthday Parties

Today was a busy little day. Activities I authorized and activities I did not. This qualifies under the latter. The kids and Brad have already walked across the lake by our house, but he was driving home from somewhere with the girls, and decided it would be fun to drive across the lake to our friends' house. To his credit, and before grandparents freak out, there have been cars and trucks on the lake for weeks now, with no temps above freezing. Does it still make me nervous? Yes.

Mac, in this picture, appears to share my concern. Leiden thinks it's great.

They pulled up to the Taylors' back yard, which is the lake, and gave them a call.

They were just heading out, so they came and joined Brad and the girls on the lake with their car. We love the Taylors! They then proceeded to do some donuts on the lake (I think this is the part that makes me most nervous). You could see the tracks from Tahoe donuts from the street.

Later this evening it was Evie's birthday party. Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of Evie! Here's Miriam 1/29/11:

It was a pajama party--kind of like a sleepover without the sleeping over. Everyone wore their jammies, and they had breakfast for dinner, did hair, nails, and face paint, and watched a movie.

We love to see our 'old' friends whenever we can! Happy Birthday, Evie!

It's COLD, but Warmer!

Today it's about 28 degrees outside, and it's a play outside kind of day when you're growing up in Minnesota! It's the warmest day since winter started. The girls headed out to play in the snow for a while after school.



Leiden loves the big hills on the sides of the driveway. She wanders back and forth.



I think they make her feel tall.

Mac, of course, is still pretty young, so she came in after just a little while kind of whining. The snow gets in her mittens and that's that.

Yes, another dinner mess. Spaghetti with spinach tonight. And it is plastered all over this little one's face.

And she is so happy about it! Miriam 1/28/11:

January is Winding Down

These were on Brad's phone, from 1/17/11: The girls and Brad took a walk across the lake by our house. The lakes are entirely frozen over, safe to walk on.



They found several ice-fishing holes, and even some fish. They came back that afternoon cold, sad, and ready to be in the house.



Miriam gets into whatever trouble there is to be found. And glories in it. And you all get a view of our laundry room that doubles as the mud room from the garage, and the cupboards where the girls keep their art stuff. Which all combines to mean messy. Just what Meems likes.



Miriam 1/24/11: Trying to be helpful...




We had the Taylors over for FHE on 1/24/11: the girls had been begging for 'worm' treat.

Not my favorite treat, but fun for the kids. All the components separately, delish. Gummi worms with pudding and oreos? Not so much.

Miriam 1/25/11:

As of 1/25/11, Mac is doing...okay...with potty training. She is absolutely refusing to go number 2 in the toilet. So, we're pretty sure she's getting constipated, and this is not good. She is really emotional, really sad, and really teary. If I could just get her to understand that she will feel better if she goes, we would be good. No dice.

Miriam 1/26/11: Playing with the drawer again.

Miriam 1/27/11: Mimi makes giant messes when she eats. Especially on chili night, or any night where there is sauce or wetness. At least she wasn't wearing a shirt. It would have been destroyed.

No shirt was made evident when we found a bean in her belly button. Oy.

Later today, Brad found Mimi with this in the bathroom. Yummy. He said he got most of the big chunks out of her mouth. Gross.

I can't believe the month of January is almost over. This is crazy. I don't know how time goes by so quickly. But here we are. Perhaps the rest of the winter will pass quickly and we can get to warm again!

Life

1/21/11: We were so excited to have visitors here in Minnesota!! My cousin Rachel and her husband Isaiah came to interview with the University of Minnesota and came by our place for dinner. We rarely get visitors, so it was such a treat to have them come see us! Rachel is expecting and they will make great parents--I think Isaiah may have spent an equal amount of time playing with the girls and talking with us! The girls know when someone's fun!



Mimi loves to push anything around that she can. The little things make me nervous, as I can see her tipping right over, but I do my best to contain myself.



Mimi is a happy little thing. She's learning to play with multiple objects at the same time. Here we have a cup with yogurt in it for a snack, doubling as a chew toy, and a bowl and spoon--clean ones, amazingly enough.

Miriam 1/22/11:

We are going to be putting in a new fireplace...the old one was just too much wood in an already 'woody' room. And it was literally too much wood--against code for a wood burning fireplace, so Brad got out the crowbar and took it off. We'll put in a gas insert and stone around it. He spent a lot of time the day before going through our file cabinet and built up a nice stack of papers to be destroyed and figured it would be fun to burn them. I have to say I'm glad we aren't keeping it wood burning, because the smell was not pleasant. Give me odorless heat any day.

Mimi thinks it looks pretty fun, too!

Miriam 1/23/11:

See that little bottom--it has underwear on it. We took Mac to church today without a diaper, and she did great! Only visited the bathroom once during her two hour nursery stint, and no accidents! Yay for Mac! If only we could get her to do everything in the potty, if you understand my meaning.

Leiden is trying to teach Mac some of the ballet positions. She loves her dance class, and Mac is excited that she will be able to do a dance class soon. That was one of the things we kept talking about as potty training incentive.

Brad had the camera at this point, and he likes to encourage behaviors that I discourage. Great.

Miriam+Mac=Mayhem and some Marvelous Masterpieces

First off, Mac is potty training. We started on 1/17/11, and it has been a little rough. We finally decided to hard line her, and just refused to put a diaper on her. And then I may have refused to feed her breakfast until she put on some underwear. After lots of crying (an hour?) about not wanting to be a big girl, she, ahem, 'put her big girl pants on' and ate some breakfast. Repeat at naptime and every day since, although the time spent whining about wanting to remain a baby has decreased every day.

That said, she's doing well. Really well. Better by far than I thought. She's only had a couple accidents. My biggest complaint? She literally tells me she needs to go potty every 5 minutes. I think that first day she went 15 times by the time she took a nap. That too, is getting a little better here four days later. My next biggest complaint? She won't do anything but urinate in the toilet. I guess one step at a time.

With Miriam, it's always something. She's either getting into stuff, or I have some other installment in the saga that is her life. On 1/18/11, we took a little trip to the doctor with suspected pinkeye. I knew a day or two before that, but we're trying not to pay out our entire deductible in the first month, so we waited to be sure. Well, not only does she have pinkeye in both eyes, but an ear infection. That would explain some of the whining for sure.



The doctor prescribed eye 'gel' instead of drops because he thought that would work out better. I think any way you look at it, they just scream until it's done. She has perpetually shiny eyes now, as it kind of melts and goes everywhere. And her little eye is still bruised, so she just looks great.



And then there's the getting into stuff that has increased exponentially since she's been moving a lot more. I came in to the kitchen to see this-- Miriam 1/20/11:



She managed to scrounge some Cheerios out of the virtually empty box and poured them on the floor. And then ate them. I think it's been a few days since I mopped...



and then I get this: she's coming for the camera, and look at that (blurry) face of deviousness!



Later that same day, I found her in the hall by the bathroom with an entire roll of toilet paper that had found it's way out of the bathroom. I interceded before things really got rolling.

If Mac doesn't close the bathroom door, she crawls in there and pulls all the toilet paper off the roll.


And little Leiden: still loves to draw, color, and otherwise exercise her artistic abilities. Birthday cake:



a swan:



They keep me on my toes, if nothing else.

Everyday Life

So, we got our first real, actually-home-the-whole-month-and-it's-freezing-cold gas bill a week or two ago, and it was not pretty. Our house is fairly large, and with three levels to heat, apparently we really rack up the therms. Our reaction to the outrageous gas bill was to turn down the heat two degrees, night and day. You would not think that two degrees is that much, but it makes the house feel SO COLD. I literally have to wear a sweater and my slippers all day. The only saving grace is that the kids don't seem bothered by it--even running around without socks and in short sleeves. Brad feels it perhaps the most keenly. His blood is so thin. I came in one night to find him making hot chocolate and hovering over the gas stove trying to get his hands warm. This had better have a noticeable effect on the gas bill!



Poor Mimi has another black eye. She was playing in the bath and slipped/fell sideways. She started crying really hard, and I didn't understand until I picked her up and saw that she had smacked her eye on a stacking cup. I hate it when they bruise! Miriam 1/14/11:



On 1/14/11 we took a little trip to the Plymouth Creek Center dome to play on the inflatable toys. Mimi is not big enough to join in, but she had fun climbing on the stroller.



The girls had fun, but there seemed to be a lot of crying. Getting bonked, run into, pushed, etc. I kept trying to tell them that that's just how it is, especially when there are a lot of older kids there. I'm not even sure why the older kids were there. Do these children not go to school?



Miriam 1/16/11: We have the 1:00 PM church time, which is just terrible. Thankfully I'm no longer in nursery with kids who are missing nap time, but it's hard for my little one, and thus for Brad as he has her most of the church block. She sleeps great in her crib, but has a difficult time sleeping anywhere else. She'll fall asleep in your arms after fighting it for far too long, but this baby weighs 25 lbs. Literally, it's like holding a giant, Costco size bag of flour and bouncing it up and down for 20 minutes. I have had sore biceps on Mondays. Anyway, Brad got her to sleep finally, and ever so carefully laid her down on the stage. It stuck, until classes changed and kids came tearing through the gym. I think those children don't know how lucky they are to be eating dinner with their families tonight.

This was Leiden's bedtime ensemble tonight. Laundry needed to be done, and this was her solution to the problem.