owen's brilliance revealed.

Oh, Owen. What a kid. And Aleida is being her sweet, smiling self.

hibernation

The cold continues and our time indoors has remained sane. We've gone our for walks and time outside when the temperature has been about 20F. That's not too frequent. But we have 'school' on Wednesday morning and church on Sunday and I think those activities have been really key for our winter survival.

To pass the time and really feel cozy I've been making a rug. My progress is slow but I hope to be done in the next couple of months.

lazy hazy sunday

Owen has a bit of a cough and runny nose, and Aleida is getting some molars in. Both kids (and parents!) are worn out! But we're in good spirits; it's been a lovely January thus far. We had a long, full morning at church today. The kids are responding so well to our church activities lately (being the past 2 weeks). Owen is really embracing and enjoying his preschool Sunday school class. It used to be a struggle & fight for him to attend nursery and his class so we're very grateful to have him excited and happy about his activities. He really loves his friends at church, too. Aleida can get upset at being left in nursery, but she settles quickly and plays well and seems to enjoy participating in new things. There's another little girl at church who is a number of months older than her -- they've had some bonding moments, it's very sweet.

Ry is marking exams. Owen is building a parking facility for his cars. Aleida is taking a nap. And I have a kitchen to clean, but before I tackle that, I thought I'd roam around our place and capture images that I enjoy seeing. (Aleida is asleep so she didn't make it into the mix... perhaps I'll find a pic of her from a different day :)

* Music of choice for the afternoon: Edward Sharpe & the Magnet Zeroes, as well as Local Natives (thanks Charlie for the recommendations) *


:: sunday school art project ::











i just read an article that our pastor wrote for our monthly newsletter in which she talked about storytelling & how it shapes our souls (a Thomas Moore idea); it isn't just the life experience itself, but the recounting, remembering and reprocessing that is important for our life-source. I think part of this process is intricately connected to our familial history as well -- it is crucial that we keeping the stories and experiences of our parents, grandparents and great grandparents ongoing and current.



:: my lovelies ::

keep it simple

lessons learned so far this new year: slow down, smell the flowers & hydrate.

i don't believe in new years resolutions because i don't find them helpful or constructive. But, I do want to keep the above ideas in mind (for my & my family's sanity & health!)

frimas!!!

it's almost frimas (in Owen-speak). We are all VERY excited about this (aleida's excited by osmosis). We got our Christmas tree up and Owen plugs the lights in every morning. So our electricity bill will be higher this month . . ..

Owen got to meet Kris Kringle/Santa Claus; he was shy at first but then got very chatty! Aleida was slightly interested in him but did NOT want to sit on his lap. So Santa had an idea . . .







We had a lot of fun decorating our tree. The kids both enjoyed the process.










One thing I love to do at Christmas: lay under the tree and look up into the tree!


Ry is a busy busy bee right now! His PhD application (to start a program fall 2011) are coming due! He's finished applying to 3 schools, and has 3 to complete. The rest of us are just going about our daily routines: playing cars, playing trains, putting objects in other objects, laundry, cooking, Christmas baking, 'school' (ECFE) - which both the kids enjoy a lot, and now more recently, we've been enjoying lots of snow. We got 23" in a day! This is how winter is supposed to be :)

she's 1!

Our little girl turned ONE on Saturday! She had a busy and fun day. We made pancakes in the morning and put a candle in hers.












Here's Aleida doing one of her favorite things: walking with her purse.

little walking lady

We are now a household of all walkers. Aleida has joined us to move on 2 feet. And she LOVES it! She is very good at regaining her balance, and when she falls, she knows how to fall well and she quickly gets back on her feet again. And lately she's quite taken with one of my purses. It has a short shoulder strap and her favorite thing to do right now is walk around with it, a smile always on her face. Phones still excite her; she frequently needs to talk into her hand if ever anyone of us is on the phone.

Owen has been different people these days. We might wake up to find that Allie is visiting us. Or the past couple of days it has been DookeeDookee (sp?). These kids are usually older than Owen, just by a little, and girls. Obviously when Allie or DookeeDookee addresses Owen's parents, the names Marcia or Ry are used. This is the first telling sign that it is not Owen talking, but rather a visiting guest.

We have settled into a bit of nighttime routine. We get Aleida ready and in bed by 7. While that is happening, depending if one or two parents are home, Owen might watch a bit of a show while he eats some pear or apple or yogurt. Then once Aleida is down, it's Owen's turn. He's been in bed by 7:30. It's amazing! We had an extremely hard time with bedtime there for a while. Well, with Owen's bedtime. He just wouldn't want to go to bed, and once he had been 'put to bed' he'd come out again and again. This would sometimes happen for 2+ hrs. NOT OKAY. We've cut out his afternoon nap and that has helped immensely. It is so amazing to have bedtime be completed at 7:30. (Wake time has been earlier than desireable but we'll have to sort that out after this time change . . . rise time could be 5am for a while here...)