Toddler fashion

I showed Kateri the adorable pictures that Mormor recently posted of Zoe and Lia, and we both agreed that we just HAD to join the fun :)

(Also with a thrifted HA dress)



Thank you for the inspiration!!


The next Michaelangelo?

Yesterday, Sebastian and Kateri were quietly eating breakfast while I was straightening up the kitchen. I was very focused on the task at hand, and after a few moments realized Kateri was saying something over and over in a sing-song voice. And then, after several repetitions, I finally actually paid attention.

"Painting the wall! Painting the wall! Painting the wall!"

And that, my friends, is exactly what she was doing . . . with blueberry yogurt.

. . . .


I should have realized that graffiti is similar to cocaine, or mint oreos (in my case) in that it is highly addictive for the under-three crowd. But, no, I figured it was an isolated incidence and was ever so unlikely to happen again.

Little did I know . . .

Later that day, Kateri and Sebastian both desperately needed naps and seemed very tired once afternoon hit (they had a delightful visit with Nonie and Nano, Mormor, Mihi, aunt Lulu, aunt Gigi, AND their cousins earlier). However, neither of them seemed to fall asleep, so I just let them have a bit of quiet time in their room.

Then I had a slight inkling that Kateri needed to be checked on, Unfortunately that slight inkling was too late! This is the scene that met my eyes as I went in her room:

You can see how carefully she painted the "Owl's nose" as she later pointed out to me. And completely obliterated the squirrel behind that giant blob . . .

What this photo fails to capture is the thick coating of desitin on her arms, legs, feet, hands, face, and the copious amounts in her hair. Even this morning, after a nice long bath and many shampoos, I found the white remnants still lingering! I thought every vestige of diaper cream had been removed from reach, but sadly I missed a very full tube somewhere.

However, I have to say I am very VERY grateful that desitin, and not poop, was the paint of choice!!! Silver (white, perhaps?) lining!

We are alive!

Alternately titled:

Super quick, Lightning Post

or 

Phone Picture Roundup

And trying to get back in to blogging . . .

Zinnias are just so pretty and happy and cheerful! I have so enjoyed having them here by the sink, especially when there are ONLY CLEAN dishes in the vicinity!

On an entirely different note, Sebastian has been growing so much the past few weeks, finally starting to walk right around 14 months, just like Kateri. His vocabulary has been growing as well, but he is careful to use it very very sparingly.

The other day he fell asleep in the car, and kept sleeping as I carried him up the stairs.

I have been trying to drink in every moment like this because I know that he is growing so fast and soon will come the last time he sleeps in my arms.

He looks like he is dreaming about chocolate cake (or maybe he is just smiling because he is actually tricking me into believing he is sound asleep, but he is actually wide awake!).

The other day, I drove up to mom's house and this is the scene that met my eyes:

Really, Coke should be giving Peter a never-ending supply of Coca-cola for being such a color-coordinated, above and beyond, sponsor! After all, who carries a drink in one had while they push a lawn mower with the other?

Too cool for school

We went to the demolition derby at the PWC Fair last week. It was quite a wonderful evening and everyone enjoyed it to varying degrees. Pat was particularly impressed with the demolition derby, it was very intense and exciting. Sebastian watched in open mouthed awe at something so amazing

And within minutes he was smiling and laughing and clapping his hands!

Kateri, on the other hand, was rather concerned with such wanton destruction.

"Why on earth are they doing this?"

But she watched the entire thing, and DID enjoy the basket of French fries!

I recently re-read "That Hideous Strength" by CS Lewis. Such an incredible book, I highly recommend it if you haven't read it!

Sebastian is ONE!

In my mind, Sebastian has been about six months old for the past six months. So it really was quite a shock when I realized that he was actually turning ONE in just a few days. Even though there wasn't much time to prepare, we still wanted to throw a little party for Sebastian. So, in honor of Grave-Digger, the monster truck we passed four times on our trips to and from the outer banks, we chose monster trucks!

Which was, thankfully, quite easy and simple and we just threw it together the day of. Pat's mom generously got the checkered table cloths and checkered flags, which really make the whole thing.

And, in case you can't read what we had to drink:

Fare was very simple: hot-dogs, chips, and a few other little things.

(Peanuts)
 

And you can't have a monster truck party without

(even though licorice is quite possibly the most revolting candy ever invented).

And, of course, we had to have the cake, which was the easiest cake that I will probably ever make!

Sebastian did enjoy the cake (at least the frosting).

And Kateri preferred the oreos:

I didn't take many pictures, sadly. BUT we did get one of Laura and Danny!

Handsome boy with his lovely mama!

All in all, I think Sebastian had a good time.

He is such a dear little munchkin. He has quite a funny sense of humor and you never know what will tickle his funny bone. About a month ago when we started brushing his teeth, he found spitting so unbearably funny that he laughed so hard he threw up! He still finds it funny, and laughs and laughs each night as he spits after brushing.

One of my favorite things about him is his cheerfulness when we put him to bed at night. I don't know why he is, generally speaking, so happy, but whenever we put him in his crib he stands up at the edge with the biggest grin and looks as if we just brought him to Kings Dominion. He chuckles and laughs when we kiss him good night!

Kateri and Sebastian have a little 'secret'. At night, after we say our night prayers, tuck them in, and leave the room, Kateri climbs out of her crib and into Sebastian's. This is so clever and so hilarious to both of them, and Pat and I will hear GALES of laughter as they share this little joke. Sometimes, we have to referee when, after thirty minutes or so, we hear some fussing and go in to find Kateri sitting on Sebastian's head. But other times, they fall asleep in there, which is really sweet.

Sebastian always wants to be in on the action. If he sees that Kateri is engrossed in something, he will always make a b-line for her and do everything he can to get involved (which usually translates in to knocking over what she is stacking, dispersing what she is collecting, or stealing what she is holding).

He also wants to know how things work; he figured out how to open the fridge, take off the doorbell cover, remove the heating vents, all things Kateri never knew how to do until Sebastian showed her how! They will undoubtedly be little partners in crime.

Sebastian's favorite game is peek-a-boo. He loves playing in the water. He has no fear of stairs, can climb up quite well and quite quickly, but is still working on reliably coming down the stairs. He hasn't officially taken his first step, but there have been several times where it seemed like he had. He loves playing with cars, and instinctively knew how to play with them without anyone ever demonstrating. He dearly enjoys being out of doors, and loves to point things out. He always points and says, "B! B!". I think he heard us always pointing out birds with Kateri, and assumed that Bird actually means Look. He reliably knows how to say "Mama" and "Da" for Daddy, but hasn't picked up much sign language other then an occasional "more". If Kateri ever laughs at his antics, he will always try to make her laugh harder.

Sebastian truly does not have the time to have his diaper changed or to change his clothes. The wrestling matches that ensue between the two of us are epic and long. BUT I have found that if I can find a way to make him laugh and find some little joke it is inevitably easier!

So thankful that God has blessed me so generously in this precious handsome little man! Happy birthday, my dear little Sebastian. It is hard for me to believe that this was you one year ago!

Still cracks me up!

Please say a little birthday prayer for him, if you have an extra moment.
 

A little garden update

Well, this spring has been a whirlwind, and no blogging at ALL has taken place. I am hoping the summer will slow down a bit and we will have some of those lazy days of summer we always hear about. Maybe then I can sit down and jot down all the little posts I have swirling about in my mind! Time will tell!

For now, here is a very short garden update!

Yesterday, I built our cucumber arch with some PVC pipes and chicken wire. It was really satisfying to put in the garden because the cucumbers, which I planted right before our trip to the beach, have already taken off. I used Uncle Bill's twisty trick to get them started up the arch, and it seems to be working well!

Not the greatest of pictures, but I am really happy how it turned out! You can see all my gladiolas are very vertically challenged and despite all my efforts to straighten them out, persist in growing at a slant!

We have had quite a LOT of rain lately, which has been perfectly splendid for the garden.

The zucchini and squash has grown by leaps and bounds in the past week, and are threatening to overgrow the nearby path! All the wind blew the rasberries over, and they are completely content to fully block THEIR path. I am going to wait until the berries ripen to tie everything back because I don't want to risk any broken branches!

And here is the rest of the garden:

So much to be done :) It is always nice to get in some garden time while the littles are sleeping. It has been hard to get any productive work done while they are both awake, because at least one of them is inevitably getting into some kind of mischief!

While I was snapping these pics from the deck, Kateri and Sebastian were also busy:

Thankful for these wonderful summer days! And I am very much hoping to get a blog up soon about the little party we just had for Sebastian's birthday . . . and all of the fun those two had at the beach!

Garden Transformation

So we have been doing a massive overhaul on our garden. March 11 was my official start date.

See all those egg shells that missed the compost pile?

Honestly, if someone showed me this picture, the LAST thing that would come to mind would be 'garden'. You really can't even tell that there are raspberry bushes to the left thanks to the overwhelming amount of weeds covering them.

 It makes me feel exhausted just looking at these pictures! I had no idea at the time how much work it would take get the garden ready for planting!

This is the view towards the rabbit cages (important to compare to later!).

So, I weeded and pulled up a bunch of dead plants/weeds/old tomato vines etc. Not a huge difference, but a difference nonetheless!

A few weeks later, Pat and Mac (Mr Grenier) worked on the garden all day while I went to a retreat. Pat's mom generously watched Kateri the entire time. The first raised bed went in really smoothly~ the wood was nice and straight and perfect! But the following three beds were a royal pain as the wood had been sourced from the reject pile. All was worth it though, as the grand total for the beds came to only $30!

                           

It was also bitterly cold outside, but that did not stop them!

Kateri did her best to assist whenever possible . . .

 Later in the afternoon, Mike came and helped as well! He designed the curve of the garden fence, which I LOVE! Pat and Mike worked until there was not the slightest bit of daylight left.

Can't you just imagine that fence with a beautiful flower garden in front?

While pulling out the weeds in the main garden bed, I realized that a massive root system innervated the entire thing. Over many many days, and many many hours, I have turned the soil shovelful by shovelful, and broken apart the earth by hand to remove these roots.

To give you an idea of how many roots there were, this handful came from one normal sized shovelful of dirt!

Rather an arduous task. But this guy definitely helped keep me in high spirits!

Two years ago, we planted some gladiolas. I felt like I was digging up treasure as the bulbs had greatly multiplied and there were MANY more then we initially had planted.

Just a few of them!

Here are the raspberries which can finally be seen~ the weeds covering them are no more! We are trying pine needle mulch this year so we will see how that goes. So far it has been very effective in weed prevention!

Pat also put up this small lattice fence, which is spectacular because now Wrigley cannot get into the garden if we shut the garden gate.

After turning the soil, we did another lasagna garden layer to replenish all the soil nutrients.

I kept noticing that my toes were getting a bit wet as I worked in the dirt and mud, and so I figured there must be a crack in my boots. Well, I finally checked, and yes! There is a crack indeed :)

Best $10 I have ever spent. These boots served me well for many many years!

Next we planted some of the herbs, some lettuce, peas, garlic and cabbage . . .

And kept plugging away on the main bed (and killing all the gross grubs!) . . .

And kept working on turning that soil!

And guess what! Today, April 15, 2015, after many many hours and many days, we finally have finished! No pictures because it is dark, but they are coming! Thanks be to God.

Find Your Beach

So, we had really been hoping that all the predictions for snow were just hype and that today would be nice with a big dose of spring in the air.

We were brought back to the cold and dismal and wet reality that is Virginia Weather in Spring as soon as we got up this morning:

The morning was rather dreary and both kids were starting to show signs and symptoms of cabin fever setting in. So, we took the advice of Corona commercials and decided to find our own beach . . .

So first, Kateri and Sebastian got all ready!

Kateri checking out her new bathing suit (she insisted she wear that hat . . . which of course she refuses to wear if there is ever actual SUN)

So excited!

He really doesn't look like a little baby . . . he is growing too quickly!

They were both very VERY happy 

 So we went to set it up! Sebastian, of course, discovered that bathtubs provide the perfect medium for pulling up to a standing position today. He also quite suddenly developed a strong belief that he is, in fact, a fish, and can do whatever he wants in the water. I enjoyed the 1.5 (total) baths where he would just reliably sit in one place and content himself with splashing!

Kateri is in charge of all the toys. Sebastian just has to deal.

However, I took this opportunity to bring out a new beach-set! We were at the beach, after all! (Thanks to Catherine, Steve and Jason for the gift!)

Seeing the new toys!

Even without sand, shells, or ocean, she was very happy with a shovel, sieve and bucket!

Of course, as previously mentioned, Kateri is the toy dictator and made sure to hoard all the new toys, while quickly shoving any of the "old" ones at Sebastian.

Stay Away! Don't Touch!

But Sebastian, with his newly discovered water-confidence, started launching himself across Kateri's lap and all the toys, causing loud cries of dismay, and general confusion as water splashed everywhere and the new toys were spread all over. Ultimately, he ended up with one of the "new" toys each time, so his strategy was pretty successful. 

Soon, Kateri (understandably) requested that Sebastian be taken from the tub to leave her in peace. "Bash, OUT! Bash, OUT!"

But they ended up working it all out!

Soon, Kateri noticed Sebastian's feet were turning into prunes, and she said,  "Uh OH!!!!" And not long after that, it was time to get out, which was not one of the most popular parenting decisions I have made. BUT, it was fun while it lasted, and they are taking a nice nap now!!