Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Sleeping Beauty 2

Did you think I fell off the face of the planet? Nope, on top of me having an ongoing and dragged out head cold that I'm just now getting over, we've been in Idaho visiting family recently. We had a lot of fun there and took a lot of great pix which hopefully I'll have edited and ready to share soon, but meanwhile, here's this for you....

You know that saying you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink? Well, I guess you can tuck a kid into bed but you can't make her sleep in it. This was one night after we'd tucked Bree in and a few hours later, when we went to peek in on her, this is what we found:

Apparently she got back out of bed, played hard and just passed out where she was.


Actually I've blogged about Bree falling asleep in weird places before, I guess the kid isn't picky about sleeping locations and just goes to sleep wherever it is she feels tired. Funny little kid!

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Noah

Can you believe the little guy will be celebrating his first birthday in less than 2 months? Where has the time gone? He's getting to be such a big boy already, turning into a little charmer, looking around with his big blue eyes and batting his incredulously long eyelashes at everyone and all the while continuing to become more mobile and active. The other day he actually pulled himself up to a stand using the dishwasher door and was standing there, holding on to the door and unloading dirty dishes as fast as I was trying to load them in! (Didn't get a picture at that moment, but I'll try to capture that one for you soon.) And, although our house has a total of about 2 stairs, one leading into the garage, and one leading in the front door, since it's finally gotten warmer and we've all been in and out a lot more, he's all about figuring out those as well, fearlessly climbing up and down repeatedly. I can't believe we're already at the phase where I have to worry about this stuff! :) Anyways, couldn't resist sharing a few cute pix of Mr. Man himself...


Looking a bit spacey first thing in the morning.


Gotta have the beloved binky hangin' there.


Looking all innocent, "Who me? I never cause trouble or get into things!"


"I'm just sitting here all nicely with my hands folded, waiting on breakfast like a little lamb."


"Yep, just chillin' out over here, I'm cool that way. This isn't unusual for me at all, it's not like I usually fuss and fidget if food doesn't hit my tray fast enough."


"Although, Mom better not try to feed me any green beans or anything like that! Bleck!"


"If she puts anything like that on my tray I'll just give her my incredulous, 'Mom, what do you think you're doing and who do you think you're fooling?!' look. For under 1 year old I have impressive control over my eyebrows."


"Oh, it's toast and peaches for breakfast? All right! My favorite!"



"Now what am I doing suddenly out here and in a whole different outfit? I don't know. Mom's crazy! Maybe her bad head cold has affected her brain!"

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Fisher "Grill"

Daddy's little apprentice:




Monday, May 12, 2008

In...

Since I tend to write less in a chronological way and more in a topical way, as I was getting ready to post today, I was trying to decide which subject to talk about. Not that I have a lack of things to say (never a problem for me!) but rather that I have so many things. The fact that I missed several posts last week and have a lot to catch you up on doesn't help either. So, I was sitting here with a bunch of kind of random things on my mind when I realized they're really all tied together by one little word: IN....

Yep, at our house it seems to be all about IN, in some way or another. Noah, in particular is all about getting IN to things. In fact, his army crawl has gotten soo fast when he's really wanting to get somewhere that I don't think it even qualifies as an army crawl anymore. It's more like olympic freestyle carpet swimming. Although, we may see the end of that soon as he's been spending a lot more time working on being up on his hands and knees and may either move to traditional crawling soon, or even skip that and go on to walking, he's been pulling up on things too. So, after he carpet swims like a speedy shark over to wherever it was he was headed, you can be sure he's gettting IN to something. One of his new favorite things is exploring in and out. If he sees a basket of toys, over he goes and dumps them out, a pretty normal thing for him to do. The funny part for me is, then he proceeds to carefully put them all back IN the basket, one by one. He could sit and do this for hours, dump it all out, put it all back in. I even caught him doing this with his food the other day. He was sitting in his booster seat with the tray on and I had set a little plate with peach dices on it for him. Instead of eating his peaches right away he actually spent a good 10 minutes, picking up peaches and moving them from his tiny plate, onto his tray and then, once they were all on the tray, all back onto his plate. I find it very fascinating how intent he is, at only 9 months, on doing this to everything right now. Not sure what that says about his personality, his need to sort things like this...but if it's anything bad, I blame his father! :) Noah's other new obsession is opening the cupboards (or, in other words getting IN to them!). He's discovered he can crawl over there, hook one or two tiny fingers behind the cabinet door and yank it open and then, hooray! he can throw all the tupperwares out! Which means it past time to officially baby proof my house, my goal for this week. Especially because Bree's gotten in on the act. For awhile there she was "old" enough that if we told her not to get into things she wouldn't do it. But now, seeing Noah do it, or perhaps because she's at the age where she thinks she's big enough to get open the pantry, shove a kitchen chair over, stand on it and help herself to a snack without asking (not something I encourage, I one time found her pulling out a bag of shredded coconut she wanted to munch on). She's been as bad as Noah, both of them managing to pretty much turn the kitchen, or any room, inside out. So now a large majority of our stuff will be either locked away, strapped down or otherwise kid-proofed. Which, hopefully, won't cause Noah to have a melt down. I've mentioned it recently, but as he gets older you can tell he has a bit of a temper and it comes out when you don't do exactly what he thinks you should. He's starting to show this recently by pushing things away. Say, you're changing his diaper and he's fussing so you try to calm him down by handing him a toy to look at while you finish. Nope! He'll just shove it away or throw it and fuss harder...

Other than helping Noah make messes, Bree's still all about being grown up, you could say, she's INto it. Which, sometimes make us clash a bit, since she wants to do everything for herself, like, get her own snacks or buckle herself into her own car seat. But mostly it's just kind of amusing, like when she saw a picture of herself and Noah recently and somberly informed me, "Mom, that's when me and Noah got married!" (Yes, she's still quite smitten with the idea that she'll get married when she grows up.) It also made me laugh since this year she's more aware of Mother's Day. So, last Wednesday when I picked her up from preschool they had apparently been working on making some Mother's Day gifts and had also apparently been sworn to secrecy. How do I know this? Because there was Bree chattering away in the backseat, "Mom, we were making cook books for Mother's Day presents but Miss Jo said we're not supposed to tell our Moms!" I don't think she realized she'd let the cat out of the bag already. Then later in the week she told me, "Mom, Dad and I got you presents but I'm not supposed to tell you. Dad said it would ruin it." To her credit though, this time she didn't tell and I had no idea what they were up to. What did I end up getting? Well, a huge part of my day was putting IN our front flower bed and getting that all prettied up the way I wanted it. We moved in early enough we could have done it last spring, but I was pregnant and more obsessed with the interior at that point. So this year I've really been wanting to get our front yard in order and looking good. So we put in a retaining wall and raised the flower bed and all kinds of things. We have a few more bushes we want to put in so it's not done just yet, but close! (Maybe I'll post a picture when it's all done.)

As for me, I've been INfected (all right, I know I'm stretching it a little with some of these IN's) with a bad head cold, watery eyes, headache, all stuffed up for the past week or so. Hence my tardiness in blogging, but I am determined to get back into the rhythm of regular posting.

Anyways, that's been our life over the past week or so.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Two of a Kind

I always seem to be talking, or typing as the case may be, about how much alike my two are. And you can't deny, they have some similarities.

They both ended up with my blue eyes and Travis' big smile...


And of course, there's their shared love of fashion accessories...




But in just as many ways they're alike, they do have their differences, as only becomes more apparent as time goes by. Brianna would never take a pacifier as a baby, and Noah loves his. Bree had teeth by now, Noah is still flaunting gums. Bree is very good about eating her veggies, and she actually likes them too! Whereas Noah is kind of naughty about them, gags and spits, pushes them around his tray and eats everything else in sight. He's more of a carnivore, meat and carbs for that boy! Bree prefers Ramen noodles for "break-spiss" (some weird phase she's going through right now) and Noah really doesn't care what's for breakfast, as long as he gets some. And I'm sure I'll only notice their differences even more as Noah's personality continues to develop.

Whatever their differences though, it's clear they love each other. You can catch them smiling or laughing at one another all the time. One of them is always finding the other's antics pretty hysterical and egging them on. They have times when they play well together and times when they already make each other mad, mostly over who has what the other wants. In fact, I was laughing to myself in the car the other day to hear "NO-AH! Stop that! MO-OM, look what Noah's doing!" (He had managed to yank away her preschool coloring pages.) It's starting already! It's just amazing how a full fledged complex sibling relationship develops in such a short amount of time complete with it's highlights and problems. Overall though they find each other to be pretty neat and they like hanging out...






What a pair! I think they compliment each other nicely and if they stick together as they grow up, they'll be a team that can handle anything! :)

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Farmer's Market

Well, finally, one of my projects came to fruition this weekend at the first Farmer's Market here in town... See, it all started when several of my friends were all having babies last summer and I decided to sew them their shower gifts, mainly burp cloths and bibs out of cute fabrics and so on. (Things my mom made for me and my own children and I've really enjoyed.) After making 3-4 sets I thought I was getting pretty good, having lots of fun, and could whip them out pretty quickly so I decided to have my own booth this year at the farmer's market. As Khalil from Veggie Tales' Jonah would say (in an Indian accent), "sewing runs very deep in my family." My mom sews, my grandma sews, my aunts sew, my cousins sew. What can I say? I'm someone who needs a project to work on, I like creating, whether it's with words or with fabric. :) Anyways, I gathered up a stack of fabric and starting sewing away, sewed all winter and felt ready to take on the market yesterday, the first official market of the season. From the start I decided I needed a niche, you know, something that would be "my thing." What's my thing you ask? Well, having a whole set of coordinated baby things that's a ready to go shower gift. And I had lots of fun pairing up the fabrics and picking which decorative stitch to use and so on. (And for those of you thinking, hmmm...how did she find time to do all that on top of everything else us moms have to do? Well, I'll tell you, I'm not Wonderwoman and I can only juggle as many balls as the next woman and some of them were dropped. For one thing I virtually stopped watching TV, not a bad thing really, and sewed most evenings. Also, okay, I'll admit it, my housework and cleaning may have suffered just a teensy bit. By teensy bit you of course realize I mean, the house was a wreck quite often.)

So, this is what's been keeping me away from the computer, and made my blogging a bit sporadic the past few weeks, finalizing all the last minute stuff to get ready to show off my "products" to the public. One of those details was picking out a name for my little booth and being the extreme creative genius that I am, I took a page from my in-laws naming of family companies book and just lumped the first syllable of both my kids names together and came up with: Breeno Baby. Yep, that's the "brand name" now. I think it's unique and fitting, since I make baby items, to name it after my babies.

The Breeno Baby booth at the farmer's market.

It all came to a head yesterday as I presented my work to the passers-by on the street in my home town. And it was a great day! The weather was beautiful, crisp and sunny, they had music playing in the background and I had a blast just even being there. Plus, to top it all off we actually made a few sales! Hooray!

Along with my physical booth, I'm also selling my items on etsy.com, which if you haven't heard of, is a wonderful site to buy and sell handmade goods. And, you know, with the current global environmental worries, it's a handmade revolution, don't you know! So, if you want to spy on me and see what I've been up to, or if you'd like to buy quality, adorable, handmade baby item gift sets for you or an expecting friend you should check me out at www.breenobaby.etsy.com Oh, and while you're at it, if you want to check out some totally unique and fun handbags you should also take a peek at my cousin's site www.revive.com (plug plug plug) :)

What's that you say? This reminds you of that Wow Wow Wubzy music video I posted a while back that you're thinking perhaps I took a little too much to heart and interpreted a bit too literally. What? You thought it was kinda catchy and cute and you'd like to watch that again without having to dig through this blog's archive? Well, who am I to get in the way of your guilty Wow Wow Wubzy pleasure? Here you go! (It should be etsy and every crafter's theme song anyway.) And remember, the best kinda gifts are made by hand.... (but just to clarify, mine don't involve glued together macaroni.)




Thursday, May 01, 2008

Breeisms

It's been funny to me to watch Brianna lately and see that already she's trying to be so grown up, even trying to use bigger and more adult sounding words in her speech like:

  • "pig-sky" - which she either can't say right or misheard me say. And I say it pretty often in reference to her room in particular. These days she'll beat me to it and when we pass her room after she's dumped every blessed toy into the floor she'll go, "Mom, my room sure is a pig sky isn't it?"
  • apparently - this one cracked me up. I can't even remember what it was she was saying to me at the time but it started out, "Mom apparently....." the rest was just a blur since I was so focused on how funny it sounded to hear her using that word. Although, I know she got it from me, I use it a lot and find myself typing it a lot here too. I don't know why I find it so amusing to hear small people using big words but...

The other thing she does which sounds so grown up and always surprises me is brings up things from long enough back that I was sure she wouldn't remember them.
  • elephant memory - They say elephants never forget and apparently neither does Bree. She will be talking along to me and casually bring up things from when she was 18 months old even. Her favorite blasts from the past are (in order from most recently happened to most distantly in the past): her cousin Chad, who visited almost 9 months ago, Bogart, and our "old house."

Chad is actually Trav's cousin who's around 13 now I think and he must have made a big impression on Brianna. She's always like, "Hey Mom, Chad's my cousin right?" and on from there.

On to Bogart the cat....well, I don't think I've mentioned it yet so some of you may be wondering but alas, Bogart the cat has moved on. No, he's not dead but he lives somewhere else and has since about 2-3 months after we moved here. I think, with me being pregnant and the move we just weren't paying enough attention to him, it was all just too much for him, and he decided to adopt a new family. So one day he just walked out and since he wears a collar, I got a call from a lady a few blocks down and went to get him. But, he just kept going back there and after several repeat performances of this, I gave up... it's obvious he's happier there. Well, anyways, this was a little bit confusing for Bree and she mentions him all the time still, even though it's been a year since he's lived with us.

And then there's our "old house"/apartment, viewed with much nostalgia by Bree. "Mom, remember our old house? Let's go back there. I liked it there." And here I thought that she was little enough when we moved not to make it quite as traumatic as for an older kid. I thought she wouldn't even remember...


But, despite her vocabulary and copycatting adult behaviors, she's still just 3 years old and sometimes adult behaviors baffle her.

  • dandelion upset - I guess to a kid, a flower is a flower and what's a weed? We have a dandelion infestation at our house. They're just taking over the yard...much to Brianna's joy. She has a blast running around, picking them and making little bouquets and such. The other day, since it's warming up and it's time to start thinking about yardwork, she overheard Travis and I talking about getting some spray to try and kill them. "No!" she said, "I like them! They're pretty!"