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! :)

A Special Friend

The kids have been begging for fish for a couple of years. Rebecca was actually asking for one when Elias was born, and has continued to ask for one ever since. Elias spotted the betas at Walmart about a month ago, and was in tears for the next 45 minutes as we drove from Walmart to the pet store to get a fish. He so desperately wanted a beta! When he finally figured out we were in fact going to get a beta, he was ecstatic! 

Elias selected a blue finned beta with a rainbow-like body. It seems to be a pale creamy colour with some iridescence to it. Elias named him Peacock. And he says, "I love my peacock". And, his Peacock loves him too! This fish spends 90% of its day hidden under the leaves of the plant in the tank. As soon as Elias is there looking at him, or even close enough the fish may see him, Peacock comes out and watches Elias' every move! Elias shows Peacock pictures in stories, draws him pictures, gives him kisses, and just generally enjoys the fish. I think I have finally convinced him that fish must stay in the water. I hope. At least it is firmly trained into him that he is not permitted to open the lid without an adult there with him. 

Rebecca desperately wanted her own fish, because she didn't want to share Elias' fish with him. So we told her we would get her some minnows, which can live without a filter/air pump, and live with a beta fairly well, so she has two minnows and Elias has his beta. They make a nice little tank to watch.

Peacock and Elias having a chat

Feeling Talkative!

I realized today that it has been far too long since I really said anything on here, so I figure it is about time to give some actual news beyond pictures (which admittedly have been far too few and far between as well!).

We got some new neighbours about a month ago. The man works as a handyman, so we hired him to pull the cactuses out of the garden by the driveway (for very cheap, but he set the price, so we went for it). Anyway, out went the cactuses, and the discovery was made that the garden is absolutely full of poison ivy! We need to pull it, but I haven't been that brave... yet. Into that garden, we are going to put a few paths of (large) paving stones, a bird bath, a couple of little hummingbird feeders, various herbs, and different heights and types of perennial and annual flowers. I thinking about maybe a bleeding heart, hibiscus, milkweed, and then I already have seeds for columbine, yarrow, basil, oregano (I think), dill, forget-me-nots, African daisies, bachelor's buttons, California poppies, and probably a few others that I've forgotten. Most of those are perennial, so it will be minimal maintenence.

We've also revamped the garden in front of the house (near the porch) because it was full of bulbs, and we discovered that many of those bulbs have poisonous content either both in the bulb and the leaves, or just in the bulb, but regardless, Elias eats anything in reach/sight, so we pulled all the bulbs. They're going to go into the garden that has been completely ignored since we moved in here, and we've put in perennials in the garden in front of the porch. :) So far we have bee balm, prime roses, echinacea, some dasies, and potentially some yarrow... if it decides to grow. I've also got some nasturtiums, marigolds, and alyssum planted.

Elias is developing in leaps and bounds. He crawls everywhere very quickly, and I often will see him right beside me, turn around, and realize he's missing! Then I go hunting. While most boys are loud it seems, he is very, very, very quiet much of the time! It makes me glad to be able to say that we just got an Ergo baby carrier! He's spent about 2 hours in it every day since it arrived on Saturday. It allows me to get at least a few things done, and I discovered today that I can actually operate the vacuum with him on my back in it! I've tried three different carriers with him on my back, and this is the first he hasn't flipped out in!

Anyway, development. Elias loves to play with balls of all sizes. He likes to put things in and out of containers... particularly balls. :) He also likes to pull all the toilet paper off the toilet paper roll, and anything that has to do with the bathroom is his favourite activity. As soon as the bathroom door opens, he crawls as fast as he can to get in there so he can play in (yes, I said in) the toilet. The big news of the last week is that Elias has started taking the occasional step toward us or some other inanimate object! I'm really hoping that he isn't going to start actually walking anytime too soon though! It's already a lot of work chasing two kids in opposite directions! I don't want to have to do it with them both on feet! Oh yes, and of course, he has discovered the pilot light under the hotwater heater. I found out by discovering him with his arm inside the space under the heater trying to catch the flame. Yikes!

Rebecca is growing up so fast lately. She loves to play with the neighbourhood kids. Lexi is Rebecca's favourite by far. She watches for Lexi's mom to get home every evening so she can drag me over to play outside with Lexi and Lexi's little brother, Aaron. She's thrilled with the warm weather that allows us to get out every day for hours at a time... I'm not so thrilled by the pollen we've got lately though! Brianna and Chris are her other two "older" playmates (more often Brianna than Chris), and Amaya is her only age-mate playmate on the street. However, she is also the friend Rebecca sees least.

Rebecca is also developing a fascination and love for many little creatures such as worms, beetles, spiders, lady bugs, butterflies, etc. She actually (finally) picked up a beetle last night! She has refused to touch just about any 'creepy crawly' for the last year, so this is a huge milestone. :) And, speaking of creatures, Rebecca still loves frogs, adn we still walk up and down the road looking for them in the ditches, but she also absolutely loves turtles, fish, alligators, and the latest love is dolphins. To the point that she actually begs me to put on movies that are about dolphins. :) She loves the old Flipper television shows. Anyway, instead of having eggs or anything, we gave her a little Pillow Pet dolphin for Easter, which she absolutely loves, and she's actually taken a nap with it willingly for the last week and a half! :)

We're heading to Florida with my parents in a week and a half, and Shannon and Mara will be joining us there. We'll be spending a week there, and then heading back up to home. Thankfully our neighbours across the street have agreed to look after all our creatures and the house while we are away... but I'm still trying to find someone to take the dogs if possible, because they throw a little loop into things for them.

Anyway, I think that's all the news!

More Pictures

Rebecca LOVES balls, and was given this one by DeAnna and Pete a couple of weeks ago.

Our new dog... Cinders. Lol. I picked this picture because it's a good one of the whole dog. As you can see, the head looks VERY much like our old Cinders. He's very much Rebecca's dog, and she LOVES him. :)

Finishing up August

I took these pictures all at the end of August...

Rebecca loves to hold ("hug") Elias :)

Doesn't his expression look like he's a little concerned?? :)

Yep... definitely concerned!

I thought this looked cute with them both sound asleep facing the same direction.

Apparently Uh-Oh likes to look over the fence with an unobstructed view, so he goes walking over the roof of our shed! Justin noticed him there one morning, so we took a picture.

It's been a challenge to keep things tidy, let alone clean the house, since Elias was born. Rebecca is into everything, and thinks she's "helping" even though she's often NOT helping at ALL. So, one day I pulled out a sheet of snowman stickers and a piece of paper, sat her on a chair in the living room, and cleaned the rest of the room while she sat and did her stickers... and then stuck the stickers all over herself as well. :)

Justin was amused to find that when Elias spat his pacifier out, he had turned his head in such a way that the loop on the pacifier looked like a monocle... Justin called it a pacicle instead. :)

Videos!

In the last couple of months I've actually remembered to pull out my phone and film some of the things Rebecca's been doing. I suppose in a way it helps that she is becoming so much her own person, and the fact that catching her on a still photo is nearly impossible lately also helps! We like to refer to her as "Hurricane Rebecca". :)

This first video is of Rebecca trying to eat a cookie. She was ABSOLUTELY determined she was going to eat the cookie. I even tried to take it away a couple of times before I got the camera out instead!

And... the below picture is from another day, at supper instead of lunch. I promise, I don't normally let her get this tired, it just happened that I caught this sort of thing twice on camera!

The below video is of Rebecca dancing. She dances to just about any music she hears, but any time I get out the camera to try to catch her at it, she stops, hence Justin being on film trying to get her dancing off to the side there!

For whatever reason, Rebecca has developed a liking for chewing on her toes again... but has a preference for which foot!

And, the last video (taken yesterday, in fact!). Rebecca has figured out how to move boxes, stools, or any other potentially stable item so she can climb onto it, and then climb onto the piano bench. She loves to sit and play the piano, and on this video just happened to play nicely, and hit on a couple of harmonies even! She gets very pleased with herself about playing, which is what the leg kicking was all about. :)

And... in other news, I am 26 weeks pregnant now, so I guess somewhere around the start of the third trimester now? Things are looking good.

Rebecca is now 15 months (plus a couple of weeks!), weighing in at 20lbs and has a height of exactly 29 inches. These measurements place her in the range of 5-10th percentiles (I think they are 8th and 9th to be exact), so she's maintaining her percentiles perfectly. She has been on a food strike the last couple of days, however, so she'd better start eating again soon, or we'll be looking at a drop (not that there's far for her to go!). She's still nursing, but I think there's been a decrease in my milk supply because she has (by her own choice) decreased the quantity of nursing she's been doing, so I'm not sure we can really consider it sufficient daily nutrition to make up for a lack of solids anymore. Of course, the decrease could also be due to the pregnancy, in which case she may pick up more nursings again in June/July once there is a lot of milk again. :)

Uh-oh is growing nicely, and weighed in at almost 5lbs at his appointment last week! He gained nearly a full 3lbs in the three weeks between appointments! He needs to slow down though, because we definitely don't want to end up with a 60lb+ dog here. I imagine considering how beagle-ish he looks, he won't be much bigger than 40lbs though. We're having issues convincing him to eat his meals though, until Cinders decides to try and eat them instead, and then he starts trying to make her back off his dishes! Rebecca no longer tries to carry him around, but does occasionally try to pick him up by his ears or tail. Good thing he's not only resilient, but good natured as well! Most of the time she's pretty nice to him though, such as this morning when she went over to his bed (where he must stay during our meal times), and gave him a kiss. :)

We've had snow a few times in the last month, but only one weekend with a lot of it. We've tried to get Rebecca out to play in it every time, as it really is quite rare to have more than a dusting on any day. Now we're moving more into the rainy season, however, so Rebecca has been discovering the joys of jumping in puddles with rainboots... or wellies, or gumboots, or whatever else you want to call them! I've had three people call them three different things in the last week! She loves her rain boots, has become 'okay' with her open umbrella, though doesn't want to stand under it yet. At least she doesn't run away from it anymore like she did when it arrived at the beginning of this week!

The one big concern at the moment is the neighbour's dog, who apparently is known to be dangerous. He nearly came across the street to our yard (teeth bared) a couple of days ago, and they even admitted that if he'd got across the street he would most likely have done some very significant damage. We called Animal Control, and while these people have been on their radar for a little over a year now (which we knew) they said their hands are basically tied unless we can catch the dog (or they manage to be here when the dog is running loose outside), or until it actually injurs someone OFF it's property. They're sending a reminder of the leash laws, which say the dog can't run at large, so if it isn't going to stay on the property they need to tie it, but that's all they can do for the moment. So... now we're discussing protection methods for when we are out on our street, because while we could (and very well might) call animal control every time, it only takes a minute for something to happen. I'm leaning toward pepper spray, Justin's leaning toward a (legal length) knife blade... we'll see what ends up happening.

January pictures and such

It's hard to believe it is already almost the middle of February! We've been rather busy this last month too... which is probably obvious considering the lack of posting on here!

Rebecca is starting to say a lot more words, though she still doesn't tend to use them to actually tell us what she wants. Perhaps she'll actually talk to us by the time she is two?! She comes out with sentences on occasion, and almost always made of words we've never heard her use before, which makes us think she will just start conversing with us in full sentence form one of these days, and then never stop talking.

I spent this morning making 'baby cookies' using various recipes my mum and I found online, because we're thinking perhaps Rebecca's daily meltdowns are due to a low blood sugar issue, since it is pretty consistently the same time of day every day. She loves the ones I've let her have, so I guess they're a success. I don't prefer them-- I like my cookies a little sweeter! I also made a 'chewy granola bar' recipe, which, while it tastes quite nice, isn't quite what I'm looking for still. I don't want it to have a cakey or cookie-ish texture, I want it to be fairly similar to the quaker chewy granola bars.

Rebecca has taken to playing with some much more grown up items than she used to... she really enjoys playing with things such as the paper animals pictured above, and the tea set pictured below.


We're honestly not quite sure where Rebecca learned to 'make tea', but she will use the teapot and pretend to pour tea into a cup, and then gets a spoon and stirs her cup of tea. :) Perhaps from watching my dad? Anyway, this is a super cool tea set, made by Green Toys, Inc., which is an entirely recycled plastics company! They use recycled milk cartons to make their toys, and they're really nice quality... and best of all, no batteries, and can work with water/juice in them. :)

I gave her a piece of paper with some glue on it, and a whole bunch of scraps of paper to play with. She spent about half an hour sticking the pieces on the paper and pulling them back off again.


Supposedly, toddlers like to play in Cool Whip, or whipped cream, or whatever is similar. Well... apparently my toddler is an exception to this, as all she did was literally sit there and eat the whole blob!

This is as 'played with' as it got!!

See? she demolished it!

The really big news of the last month is that we got a puppy. It is suspected that he is a full blooded beagle, as he has a number of birth... anomalies, shall we say? that would indicate some pretty severe inbreeding. He has five toes on his front paws, and six on the back... normally a dog would have only four on each! He also has a very cute little over bite. :) Rebecca really enjoys feeding him, and likes to carry him around every chance she gets as well. It's rather amusing, though we are really trying not to encourage her to be picking him up! At least he is quite small-- probably close to 3lbs right now. He was found under a dumpster at perhaps a week of age, in a pile of rotting junk, maggots, and roaches. Gross... but at least he's doing well now!

So... meet "Uh-Oh", the newest member of our household! :)

We're About to Take a Walk

But first, for whatever reason Shannon asked me if I've been taking any pictures of Rebecca lately, so I thought perhaps I should put some up?!

Rebecca and the little boy from across the street had a good time playing with her ball for about 15 minutes one day. He usually wants to be off playing with the big boys, but there was literally no one around for him to play with aside from her, so he sat down and played quite nicely!






Rebecca just loves to pet the guinea pigs. This is one of the baby guinea pigs, though they all look about the same size as each other now!


This is a picture of Rebecca and our neighbour's little one. Believe it or not, that other little one is only 7 weeks older than Rebecca is! That gives you a very good size comparison-- the other child is pretty much "average" for a 12-15 month old child!

Rebecca has a great time playing with this little drum. We take it with us to handbell practise, because it is one of the few things she actually will do without getting into trouble there!



And... this is just a picture of a dress I wore when I was a baby. Not sure, but I'm suspecting it was my Christmas dress...?!

And, Rebecca has started making use of her little rocking chair lately. She often needs help sitting in it, but she likes to sit and look at a book, or just hang out in it for a few minutes every once in a while through each day.