Spring Has Come!

I had told the kids that we would make St. Patrick's Day cookies, but feeling pretty yucky myself meant that I really didn't have the energy to deal with making St. Patrick's Day cookies. Instead, we made sugar cookies in a number of spring shapes, and then of course we absolutely had to decorate them!

For the last couple of years Elias has asked us for a duck. Specifically a green duck. However, there is absolutely NO way to guarantee that we got a green duck without paying a small fortune for it (ducklings sexed at the hatchery are rather expensive!), and this year he decided he just plain and simple wants a duck. Who cares what colour it is. So we called up the person we knew of who hatches various birds every spring and asked if he happened to have any duck eggs due to hatch. He said he did, but they weren't due to hatch for another week, so call back and see what he had then. We called a week later and found out that his batch of eggs had been a pretty poor hatching result this time round-- he only got two ducklings out of the whole batch of incubated eggs.

We told the kids we were going to go see some ducklings, and possibly get Elias a duck, and Elias ran off to get his money he has been collecting for the last year so that he could buy his own duck(s). He was adamant that he be the one to get them! We are just letting him think he paid for them in full. I believe they are Pekin ducks, I'm not sure if they are both regular ones or if one of them happens to be a jumbo one. They are drastically different in size right now!!

And... our winter garden stalled out when the snow came, but we are finally getting really nice produce out of it! Perhaps next year I will try planting carrots as well?! I can't wait to use these turnips and their greens this week! :)

St. Patrick's Day!

I found an interesting "icebox dessert" recipe as I was browsing my facebook last week, and since it is made with Lucky Charms, it seemed fitting we would make it for the St. Patrick's Day weekend!

In case you would like to make your own, you can get the recipe here

As it turned out, it tasted pretty good the day we made it. We ate it about 3.5 hours after I finished assembling it, and I would say you probably would want to eat it within 2-6 hours of making it. However, by the next day it was starting to taste a little "soggy", and by today it is just not that great, in my opinion. It is very rich also, which has somewhat turned me off. However, Justin seems to have no issue with it. But, it was a fun experiment... I'll just stick with Lucky Charms and regular milk, personally. :)

Instead of doing Weaver activities I decided we were going to learn a little about St. Patrick's Day this year. We read a book all about the holiday-- its origins, where Ireland is, what the Irish flag looks like and stands for, the way the holiday is celebrated by Irish people around the globe, etc. We listened to the Adventures in Odyssey episodes about St. Patrick, and we made cupcakes!

We coloured them with sprinkles to look like the Irish flag!

We finished the day with shamrock shaped raviolis in green and white. Which wasn't particularly Irish, and my kids would have happily taken corned beef over the raviolis, but it turned out that my plan was the raviolis, because I was feeling pretty rotten by the end of the day yesterday, and despite having a nap in the afternoon with the baby while I occupied the older two with a Magic School Bus marathon, I was feeling pretty nauseated and doing my very best to continue to function long enough to get everyone into bed! We were going to make sugar cookies, but that didn't happen. I do have a shamrock shaped cutter, however I think we might save it for next year and just make some cute spring/Easter shapes instead-- I have a lovely set of Easter cutters now, so that should keep everyone happy.

And, that's it for our St. Patrick's Day fun this year!

Odds and Ends

I thought I would share some odds and ends from around our home. 

Rebecca, who "wasn't tired" on this particular afternoon, fell asleep in this position at nap time. She has since stopped having naps in her room, and instead has a quiet time in the living room so as to give Elias the ability to have a nap. She was becoming far too noisy in their room, and would talk to him and get him playing so much he wasn't napping. He needs his sleep in the afternoons still, in order to be happy in the evenings. She plays outside for 30-45 minutes while I get Elias into bed and Esther fed and down for her nap, and then comes in and does school with me for about 30 minutes, and has a 30 minute quiet time. Usually we hit about 3pm at that point, and we get a snack ready and play outside for the rest of the afternoon.

Esther now likes to watch what is going on from the floor on occasion. She still prefers arms many times, but sometimes she will tolerate lying on her belly (or will flip onto her back!) to watch what is going on around her. In fact, just this morning she was fussing in our arms, fussing in her little rocking chair, and when I put her down on the floor she was suddenly perfectly happy again. I'm going to have to scrub my floors so she can spend more time there!

When Justin's parents moved, they left behind many items. The carpet sweeper was one of them, but I hadn't realized it was left behind! I got it out for Rebecca and Elias to use a couple of weeks ago, and they love it! They scramble to clean the play mat and then be the first one to clean the carpet.

We had a neighbour move in a few weeks ago, and the kids begged to bake cookies for our new neighbour, so we made him some chocolate chocolate mint chip cookies. They were a hit with everyone who got some, and were all gone within a few days here. There's a reason I rarely bake cookies. We all eat too many!

While trying to sort out behaviour issues, discipline issues, Daddy time, etc, we tried keeping the kids up until Daddy got home, which varies between 9pm and 10:30pm. It didn't work, so we are back to going to bed before Daddy gets home, but they sure enjoyed it while it lasted. They played games with him, he read them stories, and then he put them to bed. In a perfect world it would work. In our household, I couldn't get schedules shifted well enough and they were still waking at 6:30/7am despite no nap and going to bed super late. Lack of sleep made for cranky children! No thanks!

Rebecca is working so hard at growing up, and wants to do everything for herself. This makes for some interesting hair styles! Hard to believe this little girl was the size Esther is about 4 years ago! :-)

No baby yet.

And that's about all that is going through my mind lately, aside from the thought "I can't believe we're almost a week overdue AGAIN." I think I'm just going to start lying about due dates in the future, and just PLAN to be 1.5-2 (or more?!) weeks late.

I took Rebecca for a walk today at one of the local nature parks, and what would normally take me about 20 minutes or so to walk, took us over an hour, because every time we saw water, we had to stop to look for 'tuts' (turtles). We spent about 5 minutes watching a bunch of turtles basking on a platform, and also found a baby turtle about the size of a half dollar... too far out of our reach for us to do anything beyond look at it's little nose poke out of the water. Anyway, I guess at least it exercised her legs, and I got some exercise as well. She ate quite well when we got home, and has already gone to sleep... hopefully for the night, so I guess it tired her out as well.

I revamped our menu plan for the summer, and have actually planned breakfast, lunch, and snacks, not just dinners now. I took a lot of ideas from the book Feed Me I'm Yours, and thus far Rebecca doesn't seem to have any issues with almost any recipes I've offered from that book! In fact, she seems to LOVE most anything from it. The only things she hasn't loved have been the tuna and chicken salad ideas, which is fine. She's been eating more and a wider variety for the last couple of weeks now, so I'm happy, even if she isn't eating *everything* I serve. :)

Finally, my house is feeling like it is a disaster, even though I'm sure it's not quite that bad... and my mother is arriving in 11 days. At the rate we're going it seems she may arrive before the baby does, lol! But, hopefully we'll have a baby, a relatively tidy house, and some organization going on around here before she gets here.

Stuff

So, I thought I would give a verbal update on what all is going on around here lately.

I caught a skink. But, I failed to take a picture of it before I let it go again! It was a Southeastern Five-Lined Skink, if you want the "proper" name for it. In other words, it was brown with five pale white/cream stripes running lengthwise down its body.

I'm wanting to figure out where to catch a turtle, but I'm afraid that the only turtles I know how to find are rather large (and impossible to catch). I want a baby one. Just a little thing, perhaps the size of a quarter or half dollar. It is my guess that the baby turtles should be hatching sometime soon... or at least baby turtles should be coming out of hiding by now! But, the best "river" we have immediate to us is the ditch, which for some reason, hasn't even accumulated frogs eggs despite being full for about three months!

Our birds are incubating five eggs, and we anticipate the hatching of those eggs sometime in the next few days... I think. I don't exactly remember when the babies are supposed to hatch. I know they started incubating their five eggs the same day as the robins started incubating their five as well, so seeing as they have the same incubation period, there is potential that they will have hatchlings on the same day! Oh the noise we could encounter!

Rebecca is becoming more and more determined that she should get places, and can now go from a sitting position to a crawling position... but she doesn't get any further than that. She has been trying to maneuver herself into all sorts of places for the last little while, mainly meaning she gets herself off her blanket, or tries to take falls off the bed, or whatever else we may have put her down on at the time. She is in need of constant supervision, essentially.

I picked up some books about caterpillars and butterflies to read to Rebecca, as I figured that even if she isn't really interested in a "theme" per se, I could at least be reading spring/summer themed books to her. There are some really cool ones in our little selection! One of them "The Butterfly Alphabet" is a book of magnified photographs of butterfly's wings, in which there are letters of the alphabet! Of course we have "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" since it is definitely a children's classic... Rebecca thought she ought to eat each page along with the caterpillar (LOL). I also picked up a cute little book called "Arabella Miller and the Tiny Caterpillar" which is basically a rhyme all about the development of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Rebecca liked the pictures, but I find the illustrations to be more abstract than I'm really interested in. I suppose she probably particularly liked the bright colours in bold patterns. And then, we have a couple of other books to read as well. Rebecca really likes to sit and let you read to her, but she will NOT allow it for bed time. Even if she seems to be in a particularly good mood after a bath and having got her sleeper on, she does not have the patience to allow you to read her a bed time story. It's a must that we put her in her sleeper, and immediately feed her and put her to bed. Maybe some day we will accomplish a routine that includes one or two stories before bed time, but right now her routine is just "eat, then sleep". I guess it makes it really easy to get her to go down, and maybe as she gets bigger she'll be more interested in that last little cuddle with Mummy and Daddy before she goes to bed...

I believe Rebecca threw her first real tantrum last night. Deanna gave her a little foamy butterfly decoration to play with on Wednesday night, and for whatever reason Rebecca just loves the thing. I don't know if it is the texture, the flavour, or something else entirely, but she cries when you take it away from her. Anyway, after church last night I put her in her seat, got everything into the car, and then about a minute or two after we were driving away from the church Rebecca started to cry. Not her normal "I'm fussy" cry, but an outright "something is wrong" type of cry. Well, I figured that since she was recently fed, recently changd, and definitely not too hot or too cold, whatever her problem was could wait. I discovered what her problem was when we got home. She had somehow lost the butterfly way down at her feet, and because she was strapped into her seat, she couldn't get it back! She calmed instantly the second I handed that butterfly back to her! So then, after I got her out of her seat at home, she dropped it again, and I failed to give it back to her (she had other things around her to play with), and it took nearly 15 minutes for her to decide that maybe she could play with one of the other toys. Never did I think a five month old would throw a fit like that.

Last night was the church's Maundy Thursday service, and they had the tenebrae service last night as well, so there is no church today (Good Friday). The church is having a pot-luck breakfast/brunch on Sunday morning before the Easter service. I'm not really sure what we're going to take. I'm tempted to take muffins, as the only thing I can think of to take other than that is like a quiche or something, but there were lots of those last year.

I mixed up some sugar cookie dough, and I'm a little concerned as it seems a little crumbly compared to what I had last time, so I'm hoping it will work still. I picked up a pack of six spring time shaped cutters at the dollar store (yes, six for a dollar! I was excited!), so I thought I would make some spring time cookies. Perhaps I'll even put some icing on them, as I'm not really interested in putting decorations on spring cookies. Icing really seems more appropriate. :-)

And, finally, Rebecca and I are going to visit my parents for a couple of weeks from the 18th to the 2nd! I believe that as a lapsit baby, she is permitted to have one carry on piece of luggage, and one checked piece, so that leaves me with the ability to still pack my big case and bring along my purse and camera and not have to worry about not having the diaper bag and a back pack allowed as well. I still need to check on that though.

She's Holding her Head Up

Obviously she's doing other things as well, but it was particularly exciting to me that Rebecca is holding her head up to look around now, as it means she can be on her tummy and still look at the camera. Anyway, I think there is a picture for every day since the last time I posted pictures on here. :)

This is Rebecca in the process of examining and manipulating this really cool rattle Granny gave her for Christmas. It is the first toy that has really caught and held her interest for more than just a minute or two, and as you can see, she's very focused on her task! It makes noise, has little bits of rubbery things on it, has ripples of plastic on it, has three moving rings, and every time you move it, it bends one way or another way. Seriously, if I was a baby, I'd like it too! Interestingly, the packaging said 6+ months on it, but my 2 month old likes it a lot, hehe...

This is Rebecca and Justin learning the art of making grilled cheese sandwiches. Yes, my child's home ec. lessons are starting very early.

I made chocolate chip cookies! From scratch. That was after discovering that Rebecca seems to be reacting when I eat coconut... The cookie dough we had sitting in the fridge for chocolate chip cookies (bought *ages* ago) said it may contain nuts on it, and she seemed to have a similar reaction after I had some of said dough, so apparently, assuming it *is* coconut she's reacting to, she's extremely sensitive to the stuff. Anyway... that's the inspiration for my making cookies... because I wanted cookies, and hadn't any in the house I could have.

Our birdies are relaxing after finally getting rid of all their babies! They're also reading our latest flyer pack. They get new interrior decorations weekly.

Proof my child is becoming more alert: she has a bald spot that starts above one ear, and goes all the way across to the other ear. She turns her head back and forth every time we put her down... or hold her, or anything. Basically, she's constantly looking around and at everything her eyes can find to look at! Anyway, aside from that very bald patch where her hair is like... 1/4 inch long, her hair is becoming much longer and fuller looking.

I don't remember what the look was about, but the picture amused me. She was in Justin's arms at the time, so he probably did something that startled her.

I love these next pictures... I'm not sure which of them is my favourite, but I was really impressed when she actually focused on the camera and everything! These are all very typical expressions on her face...

(This is my tentative favourite...)

And, finally, dark buut.... she kept looking all around to see what was on the floor around us, and just happened to glance up at me. :)

One Month Check-up

Rebecca went to see the doctor for her one month "well baby" check-up thing, and since he doesn't have a pediatrics scale we have to weigh her by deduction. Her approximate weight therefore is about 8.25-8.5lbs when you remove extra weight for the clothing she was wearing. Basically, she's gained about 1lb 4oz in the last four weeks. She's also measuring about 20.25", which is 1.25" longer than she was four weeks ago. He seems to be happy with how she is growing (how he couldn't have been is beyond me!), and said it doesn't look like she has thrush any more, but it does look like she may get her teeth early, as it looks like her gums are already preparing for one or two teeth to break through! I'm not sure I'm ready for her to have teeth too soon though... I think she can just keep them inside her gums for another five or six months! He also said that she is tracking things really well, so I guess that's good.

We've been reading a book called Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown in the evenings, to give us something to do. She seems to enjoy the book, and it's kind of funny, but the first few times I read her the book, I pointed to the various places on the page that the words were talking about, and now when I read it to her, her eyes follow the story, so if it is talking about the barn, she looks at the barn, if it's talking about the horses, then she looks at the horses, etc! I was quite surprised when I realized she was paying that close attention!

Speaking of being surprised... yesterday I was holding her in a standing position, and she took hold of my thumbs, so out of curiosity I let go of her, and she actually continued to hold herself in a standing position! Talk about a shock for me, lol! I guess if she's going to get teeth early she might as well learn to stand on her own early as well, but honestly... one month old and holding herself in a standing position??

I finished all the baking I had planned to do, aside from the gingerbread house portion of the baking, and Justin and I took cookies to all our neighbours this morning. I've got one or two more trays to take to people, but the majority is now done. I'm just curious as to whether we'll get any of the trays back (empty, of course), as we didn't say if we wanted them back or not. :) So far people have been surprised, and very thankful or excited to be getting cookies from us... and seeing as I taste tested every batch, I know they all taste good, so hopefully they'll all enjoy them as well!

This evening Rebecca and I are going to choir practise, but there's something on at 6:30 at the church as well, so I'm not sure if we'll go to that as well or not. It seems it might be a somewhat long evening if we did! We go to the library before we go to choir most Wednesdays as well, so we would therefore have to be leaving here by about 6:00 so we would be at the church for 6:30 after going to the library for 15 minutes or so (hah, that won't be the case when she's a little bigger!). Of course, we also have some things that need to be mailed from the post office itself, so we would have to leave even earlier. Probably by 5:00, because of the enormous line up there almost always is at the post office. Okay... so the more I think about it, the more I don't think I really want to go to this thing earlier than choir practise!!! :)

Anyway, I now need to get back to working on getting things ready for the mail, so they will hopefully all be sent today!

An afternoon with my niece

My niece had been told that she could come do something with her uncle and me, and then at the last minute plans changed, so we had to rearrange what was going to happen. It ended up that she didn't get time on her own with her uncle, but she sure enjoyed her time with her aunt anyway!

First we baked chocolate chip cookies, and she loved eating the flour. Go figure. Most kids like the sugar.

Then we made a decoration for the front door at their house, as Valentine's Day is coming up. Of course, hearts are always in style anyway! This was a new concept to her, but it turned out quite beautifully!

And then, because we have three birthdays in a row (January 21, 22, 23) we made cards/pictures for each person who needed one. This one was for her brother.