Scary!

We had a scary incident on Monday eve. Jonathan had been running a fever all day, around 101 degrees. He was to Gramma's for the day, but not really himself she said. We got home and were getting dinner ready. He was whiney and I knew he wasn't feeling well, so I went over to him and hugged him. His cheeks were very red and he was HOT, much hotter than he had been when we had gotten home 10 minutes earlier. So we took his temp...104.8! Michael said we should get him to the hospital, and sat down with him. Within a minute, a tremor went through Jonathan's body, then he got kind of blank, his eyes rolled back and he went limp. To make a long story short, he had a febrile seizure. A trip to ER and overnight in the hospital with an IV started our week. Keep on top of those fevers, moms! It's very scary.
And, on a lighter note, this is why Annisia's hair is always in a clip!

Kids and their toys

Here is Jonathan with his loader tractor he got from Aunty Janice and Uncle Paul. He loves it! He is so proud of Uno (the monkey...story in a minute), because he is able to sit on the loader. He says, "Good boy, Uno! You're sitting on the loader. Good job!"

OK, Uno is a character in a Graeme Base book called "Uno's Garden". Uno is a little man who goes to a rain forest and decides to live there and the result of that. Lame description, very neat book full of things like sneaky snagglebites, lumpybums, and snortlepigs. Graeme Base is a great author...any of his books are a must. Anyways, it's actually amazing the resemblance between this monkey and GB Uno character...Jonathan amazes me sometimes with his comparisons.

Annisia enjoying the Wall Street Journal personal journal. Ah yes, I do remember this stage with Jonathan. Finally mobile and into everything...

Jonathan with his "pull". A pretty neat horse trailer, if you know what I mean!

Here he has his manure spreader hooked up too. What an imagination! Can you tell he loves to be out to Gramma and Papa's?!

One day, he was playing on the deck. Daddy moved one of Jonathan's many vehicles so Jonathan could "maneuver better". I said, "Whoa! New word, Jonathan. Can you say "maneuver"?" He was quiet for a minute then said, "Mom! Teo pooped. And Thunder pooped too!" These are two of Gramma & Papa's horses. We laughed so hard, then had to tell him "maneuver", not "manure"!

Out on the Tandem!

Last Saturday, the 24th, was so beautiful! It was about 70 degrees, so we decided to crank up the tandem. Michael got me a double stroller that converts to a bike trailer, so we hooked that up too. We were a regular limo! We rode into town to the park (2 miles) where Daddy and Jonathan played on the slides. Then we decided to ride to Michael's parents, 5 miles from our house. So we got about 14 miles in that day. Now today, the 29th, we're socked in in a blizzard.

Fixing and Grinning and Snoozing

Jonathan loves his tools. I'm not sure how, but this is "fixing" his horse trailer. Notice the "Dodge truck" (his words!) is quite stuck.


Annisia at Gramma's. She is 4 days shy of 8 months here. I love this little dress and sweater. She's so cute in it. She is almost crawling here.

Jonathan, sound asleep. This is after MOPS last week. He has a good time there, and always comes home with some new finger play he learned a few words of. Then I have to figure out which one it is and learn the rest of it to teach to him! It's a good thing he has a good ear for music...he usually has the tunes right.

And, Annisia getting into everything. She was scooting all over, getting onto hands and knees then sitting down off to a different side than she got up in, and, in that way, effectively moving sideways! Silly girl...

Fresh Air!

As spring arrives slowly, we are headed outside more and more. Annisia likes it too. Now that she's getting more mobile, it's kind of fun. She really likes this Pooh ball from Grandma. And doesn't mind wearing hand-me-downs from her brother in this cooler weather.

Jonathan got a new gardening set this spring. This set is bigger, just right for our growing boy. He weighs 28#. Jonathan loves to help with things like shoveling, raking and hoeing. Here, he was helping Daddy get the garden ready for a little planting later.

Jonathan is learning how to share. He thinks it's pretty neat to push his sister in the swing. What he hasn't quite learned, though, is to move after he pushes her! Right after I took this, the swing went back and knocked him down!

Annisia outside on another day. This is a concrete imprinting of Jonathan's footprints when he was 10 months old. She was hefting it around as a toy!

Baby Food!

Here's Annisia enjoying Apple Sweet Potatoes thanks to a recipe I found on another blog. (Thanks RaeAnn! I don't know you, but I'm getting to know Dana.) Annisia thinks this is pretty good food. The prep, cooking, pureeing, and storing take quite a bit of work (I will do it differently next time...by that I mean I won't start at 3pm Wed, when I need to get dinner ready and get to Bible study too!), but, my word, do those recipes make a lot of food! What's really cool is they save some money: Here's a comparison:
Cost of product:

• 2 sweet potatoes, 2 yams, 4 apples, 1 cup oatmeal, 2# lentils, 2# carrots, 1 butternut squash, 1.5 cups brown rice, little bits of spices = $13
  
• GladLock containers =$4ish
• total amount spent = $17
  
• amount of food made = 33 cups! = 262 oz
• for $0.065/oz
  

Cost to buy the same amount of baby food

• 2 - 5 oz containers baby 1 on sale @ WalMart = $0.84 = $.08/oz
  
• 1 - 5 oz container baby 1 at our IGA = $1 = $0.20/oz
  

OK, so maybe not that great if you have access to WalMart or some other discount store. However, for me, going to WalMart these days is about as much fun as getting my teeth pulled. So! I liked this adventure...In addition, I believe the food is better for my kiddo.

And then there's Jonathan...enjoying chicken fries and baby carrots with ranch dressing! What a cheese! He's been amazing us by practically quoting books these days. We love that we're raising a reader!

Come Into My Corner

I wrote this piece for our local MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) newsletter. Thought I'd share it.

Come into my corner

I was in the kitchen one day attempting to put together a nutritious dinner. While Annisia squealed from her swing, Jonathan drove his semi into the kitchen and parked in front of the stove. He opened the back doors of the truck then got the toaster out of the cupboard.
“OK, Jonathan, get out of my corner here. I’m trying to make dinner.” WHOA! I am my mother’s daughter. That’s what she often told us as kids. I had to chuckle.
Then I noticed Jonathan had put the toaster cord into the back of his truck. “Look, Mommy, I’m making you French toast!” What a funny kid! Suddenly, I wanted him in my corner. I’ll gladly step over his “tools” if it means he’s content.
I grew up in a large family, the youngest of seven. Understandably, cooking meals for that many can get old at times. So Mom was interested in just getting it done. “Get out of my corner” was a phrase we heard often. (Until it was time to do the dishes!) These days at family gatherings, you’re more likely to hear one of us kids telling Mom to “get out of my corner”, and then we all laugh.
I moved away from home at 20 not really knowing how to cook much because Mom did it all and we stayed “out of her corner”. That doesn’t really matter because I learned how to cook. But I only have two children to occupy me, so I want to relax more and invite them to be around me while I go about my day.
It makes me think about the immense patience God has with us. He always has room for us in His corner, always wants to teach us something new (or re-teach us something old). So the next time Jonathan comes into my corner while I’m cooking and takes my biggest fry pan out to “make pizza stone”, I want to praise his imagination, stroke his ingenuity, and laugh at his antics. Come into my corner and “make butter” with the corncob butterer and use the cheese slicer to “make cheese”. Gather all the socks I am trying to sort and fold to “make a pile”. (Just don’t stack our firewood on top of them to build a fire!)
Come into my corner, my sweet little boy. May you always feel welcome to be around me.

Snowy days & Funny says

Daddy and Jonathan played outside this morning. Jonathan got his go-go car stuck in a big snowdrift, and finally accepted help from Daddy tow-truck. Now Daddy is up skiing and we're home alone again. Michael loves to ski. It's too much to figure out child care right now, and I'm not in shape for skiing. So, he goes with his brothers and has a good time. I am counting all the extra hours he's off on these winter weekends...planning a weekend with a girlfriend!

So, while Jonathan napped, Annisia and I worked in the kitchen. I ground up and froze some leftover chicken & rice, and beef barley soup for Annisia and made trail mix while she discovered the riches of the "toy" drawer.

Whenever we say "so big", Annisia does this. Even if I say something else in the same singsong tones, she often will do this.

Here she is drinking from the sippy cup. Jonathan didn't do sippy cups this early. She really has it down well.

Hmmm...not so sure about Gerber green beans. In fact, shortly after I took this picture, she gagged on them. Maybe we'll wait a while longer or buy some frozen green beans, steam, grind and freeze them.

When Jonathan got up from his nap, Annisia had just fallen asleep for hers. Argh! No free time for me. So, we decided to go to the library. I asked Jonathan to hand me my Ugg boots (he calls them my Ugly boots!). "Jonathan will you hand me my boots please?"

"Mommy, you need to say, 'Will you please give me my boots?'"

"Jonathan, will you please give me my boots?"

"Yes, Mommy. Good job asking!" What a kick! Can you tell we're working on asking for things instead of demanding them? Looks like he's learning.

Coffee, and sleep, and books, oh my!

Every day, I see yet another occupation in Jonathan's future. Monday, it was a Barista, although I am not sure if this "espresso machine" is up to Starbucks' standards. Can you tell we like coffee in this house?!










Annisia is just happy doing most anything. She likes the music (and the string) from the Poppity-Pop Elephant.

We're getting frustrated here...Annisia slept through the night at 10 weeks. Then at about 16 weeks, she stopped. Now, she can be sleeping soundly when I lay her down, and anywhere from 15 min to 1.5 hours later, she'll wake up screaming. And it's almost impossible to just soothe her without picking her up. So, we've been doing the easy thing and she makes it into our bed where she sleeps on Daddy's chest. I distinctly do not like co-sleeping, so that is annoying, but in the middle of the night, I am for anything that lets me go back to sleep. Any ideas?




Jonathan loves to read. A current favorite is Richard Scarry's (or Scary Richard according to Jonathan)"Cars and Trucks and Things That Go". On Tuesday, he was wandering around the house saying, "Who is that making a mess of the line? (the road workers were painting the dividing lines) "Is that Goldbug? No it isn't Goldbug. He wouldn't do a thing like that. It must be Maniacbug."(pg 37) This is almost a direct quote from the book! Can you tell we read it a lot? Then I got this picture of him reading about SOME ACCIDENT and that it would take Mistress Mouse a MILLION YEARS to fix everything.(pg 64)

Today, he wanted me to sing some songs from a patriotic soft book my parents gave him. It has teddy bears in it, dressed in red, white, and blue. I sang through it and when I sang "America, America", he pointed to each teddy bear and said, "That one's America, and that one's God, and that one's Brotherhood."