this, that and the other thing

blogging has sort of taken a back seat to the rest of life, lately... between spending time with the kids, making hats, going to biolife twice a week, other random happenings and now a new job, it's kind of been pushed to the side. my dear, sweet husband pointed that out... :)

so, once again, this is a catch-up post!

cole found a new use for the exersaucer. you should see him when he stands up to walk away- talk about loopy!!

now that madison's doing more (like, walking while holding onto our fingers) he's starting to show a bit of jealousy. lately he's been mimicking her when she cries or babbles- perfectly normal, but i've started reacting to him the same way i react to madi just so he doesn't feel left out. it won't be long and he'll tire of being "babied", i'm sure!

daddy and madi playing tug-o-war with madi's paci!
within the past two weeks, madi's new thing has been 'sharing' her paci with us. she does it quite forcefully, but she's SO proud of herself when she succeeds at popping in into our mouths.

kelvin got some photos of me and the kids- just spontaneous snapshots. cole was NOT in the mood for it, unfortunately....

... but madi was! she's almost always game for being in front of the camera. she really knows how to work it!

monday evening there was a small dinner at mom and dad's for sarah- she, mom and dad are on the way out to montana right this minute. for those who don't know, sarah's moving out there and is staying with elissa and logan for a little while, getting her residency and then going to school. that's the plan, anyway... so monday evening was in her honor!

the kids and i got there before lunch so we could spend a little extra time with her.

what better way to spend a few last hours with auntie sarah than going for 'rides' in the laundry basket?

madi wasn't left out- she was in something a bit more size-appropriate: a plastic storage container. she didn't quite get the concept of playing in laundry baskets (or storage containers) so she mostly fussed. we tried.

she did enjoy a little quality time with uncle "tid", though!

(*that's how cole says it... and on a cute side note, every time we go past the billboard with a one-legged runner on it by bear creek corners, he yells "TID"!!!)

love it!

cole had fun playing with his cousins... he's still getting the hang of playing with others. he's not quite old enough for organized activity but he's outgrown the whole "do-you-own-thing" thing. sorry, kristian! you put up with cole really well- gold star for you!!

the "girls' night" girls

poor cole was trying so very hard to blow out the candle that wasn't on sarah's cake.

maybe he thought if he blew hard enough, it would magically appear.

who knows.

goofy-cute!

while it's SO hard to say goodbye to sarah, i know that this is her adventure. this is a good thing... and she'll do well. miss her like crazy already!

cole had some fun with his bath crayons from auntie elissa, uncle logan and cousin coy. i know- he got them for his birthday and didn't use them till today. that's my fault... i was dreading the clean-up. it wasn't as bad as i thought, but it definitely won't be a sunday morning ritual. he had a blast: "bath! colors!!"

yesterday was my first training day at the brick oven. i LOVE it!! i never though making pizza could be so much fun; since it's carry out/delivery only, there's no dining room or customer dishes to worry about. i've already done the waitressing thing and didn't care for it at all, so this is really nice. i had a flashback to a recent home-made pizza episode in our own small kitchen: i was making pizza dough (from a jiffy mix- good stuff, by the way) and cole was watching me try to get the dough off my hands so i could knead it. he stood and watched, his little face one big question mark, then finally said dramatically; "siiiiiick!". i think i fell over laughing! anyway, daddy and the kids did just fine without mommy home to hold down the fort- everyone ate well at supper, went to bed well, etc.! it makes me feel a little less guilty about missing out on the routine that i've been a part of for the last 26 months. i discovered today, though, that my patience was in slightly greater supply, so maybe the "break" is good. i'll miss them on nights that i work, but i can rest easy knowing that they're at home with daddy.

oh- there is one bad thing: the photos on our old harddrives? well, they're most likely gone forever. a HUGE thank you to stephen for trying hard... if you don't get them, it's ok! maybe i'm being a big baby about it, but i've cried over the thought of never getting them back. if they weren't of the kids, it wouldn't matter much... an entire summer (including sarah's graduation, first parades for both kids, several 'firsts' for madi, fishing with kelvin's family, cole's second birthday party and many other things) is probably gone. that's a hard one to deal with... but i guess it could be worse. at least i've still got the kids :)

pssst!

my mommy wants to tell you something...my mommy got a job! just a little one... and only after daddy comes home from work. she's going to make pizza, pasta and other yummy stuff at the brick oven. in case you were wondering, mommy doesn't really want to leave me and cole in the evenings, but she says it's a necessity. not really sure what that means, since i can't even say it, but whatever. mommy's excited (to tell you the truth, she's kind of looking forward to interaction with other grown-ups) and she doesn't have to feel TOO guilty because daddy will be home with us.

she starts next week tuesday...

later,

madison

~*~

in other news around here, cole cut his chin open and got a nice little streak of a bruise on his cheek and eyebrow... it happened at biolife yesterday! they had to fill out a report because he broke the skin; apparently cole had been playing and stumbled over a toy on the floor and fell against the table or one of the chairs. i think it bothered them more than me... he's a boy. it comes with the territory.

one more thing: i think i set a record for selling on etsy! i listed a winter wonderland hat this morning and in less than three hours it was sold. wow! now, if i could have that sort of luck EVERY time i try to sell something... :)

madi's 9-mo check-up

we have weight gain!! it's good news and we're excited!her stats for 9 months:

14 lbs, 4 oz: >1st percentile

27 1/4 inches: 40th percentile

so- she's gained a little weight- 7 ounces since her last weight check at 7 months. of course, she had her clothes, diaper and shoes on because by 9 months, they figure an extra few ounces shouldn't make a big difference. that is, unless the wee one is pretty petite. for madi, we consider ounces to be a big thing. dr h is pretty concerned about her weight because even though she's gained a little, she keeps falling further off the chart. he mentioned the possibility of an absorption disorder but said that if that were the case, she'd have constant diarrhea, which she's never had. if she's not climbing back up (her percentile) at her 12-month visit, then he'll want to run some tests. also, apparently her outie belly button is actually a small hernia... dr h says it's harmless and will go away eventually. as for everything else, he's happy with her development and progress. other than being quite tiny, she's healthy and on-track. still, i can't help it... i'm scared. what if there's something wrong? for now, dr h doesn't see any reason to not wait and see what she'll do in the next few months, but still, i'm worried. she didn't get any shots today, which is nice... with cole on an attitude streak, the last thing i need is a crabby baby.

bapa's boots!

my mom had a HUGE amount of apples she wanted to make into applesauce, and on saturday we went over to help out. kelvin and dad cut and hauled wood while the kids and i stayed in with mom and the apples.

they were oh-so-excited to see bapa walk in... can't you tell, from cole's little acrobatic move?

in normal cole-fashion, a few apples were well-washed.
last time we did this, cole spent hours (literally. HOURS.) at the sink playing in the water with a few apples and various utensils. i learned quickly to strip him down first!

being in the nude (almost), the poor little guy was forced to fend for himself when it came to clothing. for him the obvious choice was bapa's boots!

or maybe sawah's shirt? they didn't really "go", so it was one or the other.

in the end, he wound up with the same outfit he'd had on in the first place...

and then it was on to the next thing: coloring with auntie sawah!!

madi helped herself to a crayon too... of course, the first thing she had to do was taste it.

that inspired a flashback- total deja vu!

rewind to 17 months ago...

yup- i thought it looked familiar too!

looking through all those photos of cole at nine months made me laugh and cry (a little; what happened to my baby who made the funny squishy-face?!)

i couldn't help it- seeing such a tiny person in a tub made me giggle. and grab the camera.

rub-a-dub-dub, teeny person in a tub!!

we have some madi-developments! she's been saying "mama-ma-ma" in response to us saying it first, but last night, as she was crawling around just before bedtime, she made her way to where i was sitting, grabbed my pj pants and said "mama". she's also been saying "hiiiiiii" at increasingly appropriate times, like when sarah walked into the house last night. she's also started taking some steps while hanging on to my fingers. the whole standing/walking thing is slow going for her, since she doesn't have the freedom that cole did. rather, she's impeded by the constant threat of a toddler attack. eh, once she's REALLY on the move, he big brother better watch his back!

oh, and for cole? well, he's able to repeat every single letter of the alphabet. until a few days ago, i hadn't done much with him with letters, nothing that would really 'stick', so i was flabbergasted when, while singing the alphabet song to him late last week, he repeated every single letter along with me. not only that, he'll point at letters and attempt to identify it. sometimes he's right on, most times not so much.

oh, my babies are growing SO fast...

10/15

i didn't post anything yesterday because i just didn't want to. normally, i would have, but for some reason, october 15th hit me a little harder this year. maybe it's the occassional question in my mind: "if we hadn't lost taylor and london, would we still have cole and madi?"

simple question, but i don't always like to think of what the answer might be. i can't imagine life without my babies...

so in honor of october 15th, for parents with angel babies, here's to remembering our sweet little ones.

standing ovation

i got this cute shot of all three of the loves of my life...muahh!

cole begged till he was blue in the face for a bite of what daddy was having for supper the other night...

side salad.

he loved it.

he ate a lot of it.

crazy... most two-year old's i know don't care much for salad.

drumroll please.................

we have standage!! yes, madison pulled herself to standing in her pack-n-play a few days ago!

i think her main motivation was to have something to chew on.

"hey, i can see my feet from here! actually, that's about ALL i can see... this bar's in the way."

she was rather proud of herself!

so was cole- he even showed her the finer points of chewing on the rail.

and for those of you not on facebook, there's another new addition to the green*vanilla baby store: the winter wonderland hat! hop on over and check it out...

cole-isms

our little man has been so vocal lately... not just loud, but full of stuff that makes us laugh.

things that take us completely by surprise.

things i need to write down immediately so i don't forget them.

yes, cole is quite the chatterbox lately!

for example: this morning he saw his daddy's tennis shoes and said "daddy shoe. wheh daddy go?", obviously a little confused that daddy wasn't in them. so i told him that daddy went to work. right away, he asked, "shoe?". i told him that daddy wears his boots to work... to which he replied, "NO!! bapa boots!"

guess grandpa's the only one allowed to wear boots...

there's other things too, like how he hollers "WAIT!!!" at the top of the stairs when we're leaving the house (i tell him to wait while i stick madi in the van; he can yell it but can't do it), or how he said "azul" (spanish for 'blue'), or even the non-verbal feat of timing his little cop cars just right so the sirens go off at the same time.

that's our little man!

*(ps- that's one of the only photos you'll see me in for quite awhile, so enjoy!)*

draggin' out the fat pants!

first, on a side note, we tried potty training again on friday. it started out well...(suddenly, he's modest- he felt the need to hide behind his beloved box of "kahk-ehs")

we didn't make it past the morning! he sat well on the toilet for a good while, then when nothing happened, he got back off and proudly strutted around in his new dinosaur-print training pants. for a minute. then he pee'd on my leg. i think he KNOWS he's supposed to go in the toilet and even though we don't get mad ("oh look, you went potty!! next time the potty goes in the toilet" and that sort of thing), he was frustrated. wanting nothing to do with a new, clean pair of trainers, it was back to diapers. maybe tomorrow we'll give it another go.

meanwhile, madi broke out her "fat pants"...
... plenty of room for fat!
(if there WERE any)

yup.

oh, and she's got an outie!

never really noticed it, since her diapers are just long enough that they usually sit right over her belly button and kind of squish it in.

with the chilly weather bombarding us, it was time to bundle madi up too. she doesn't keep anything tucked around her, so no cheating for us! out of curiosity (and desperation to save a little $), i pulled out the snowsuit that mom got for her, the one she wore home from the hospital. it still fits.

yesterday we went to chris and al's for some crafts and fall fun... it was a blast!

thanks again, guys!

daddy made a stop in waupaca at swiderski to look at something, and when he didn't take cole in with him, a small tantrum ensued. cole threw george in anger (george, he didn't mean it, i swear!), and george made a cool landing. cole thought it was funny...

oooh, glue!

cole lasted about 5 minutes with the crafts- longer than i though he would! he had fun 'gluing' things together.

however, he was thrilled to see the jack'o'lantern project to the end! he did the picasso version and used all but one sticker. good job, colie!

after the indoor projects, we all headed outside for a photo and then dug for candy in the haystack. madi didn't get into the picture- she stayed warm inside with granny ruth.

for quite awhile, the concept of the candy search completely eluded cole- he happily attempted to bury the tossed-aside letters!

eventually, though, he tried his hand at it. between running down the hill and wandering around the yard, he dig a little scavenging.

for the first time, levi got to hold madi without her bursting into tears.

yay, levi!

after the third day without a nap (thursday and friday, cole reFUsed to sleep), cole was exhausted. he fell asleep mere minutes after we left chris and al's!

bath-time this morning...

...pizza this noon...

...playtime this afternoon, after naps. yes, cole napped!!

madi's not really pulling herself up to standing yet, but in her defense, it's sock weather and we have wood floors. not a friendly combination! but, if we stand her up and stay real close, she does pretty well!

love her eyes.

they take your attention away from the owie on her head.

daddy learned a lesson today: even if cole's out of the house, the basement door still needs to be shut, because miss squish is on da move!

she's fine- two minor bumps on her noggin, and the crying only lasted a minute.

she's tiny, tough cookie, she is!

cole's vocab is still growing by leaps and bounds; he's repeating things he heard days, even weeks ago. and he also sings "old macdonald": "ooh fahm, yi-yi-o"!

they grow too fast...

*sigh*

green*vanilla baby

the green*vanilla baby blog has been updated... the new hat has been added! since madison has figured out how to reach around to the back of her head and take her hats off, she's no longer interested in being my little live billboard. bummer. my next best thing? just take the hat to biolife for sample display. that's where most of my orders have come from, so it seems the logical thing to do. the daycare lady was excited. she wanted one right away.

~

anyway, in related news, there's been quite a bit of uproar in the handmade community about new cpsia rules regarding handmade items. anything intended for children age 12 and under will very soon be required to undergo lead and phthalate testing. at a minimum, these tests cost $300. bad, huh? it gets worse. now, the cpsia wants everything tested in batches... that means that every time any component of that particular handmade item is from a new lot number, package or whatever, the entire bunch of products (considered a new batch) must have a test done. only one item from that batch is tested, but still... and if the components overlap (say, the snaps run out just before the zippers but both run out after the fabric has already been cut into for an apparel item), that means more than one test for that batch. so- confused yet? so are we. it's ridiculous... having to spend between $300 and $4000 just to test a batch of handmade items that collectively will bring in far less than that? crazy. so naturally, i was quite concerned... i was preparing to take down my etsy shop and just go by word of mouth for as long as possible, seeing as how one skein of yarn doesn't make many hats at all. i'd either have to call it quits or jack the price WAY up on those babies... until i saw an article on the cpsia forum over at etsy. yarn, my friends, is EXEMPT from the testing laws!! i think i can speak for all of us knitters and crocheters when i say that while we are overjoyed at this bit of news, we're still quite upset about all these mundane laws being put into place. it's going to be the end of the majority of the handmade community.

~

i'm sure that most of you don't care too much, but i thought i'd let everyone in on what's going on... and if you want to do something about it, reseach it and write to your congressman, senator, anyone who could have any kind of impact on reversing these silly laws. if you want to, that is. i plan to, even though the only thing it affects me on is the nickel-plated alligator clips i use to make the flower embellishments removeable.

thanks for bearing with me...!

it's a l-o-o-o-ng one, folks!

because we have several weeks to catch up on, make sure you have more than a minute. 'k?

i've tried to keep things in chronological order... hard to do when you're weeding through several weeks of unshared stuff!

first things first: our new door! finally, no more bitter cold winter wind and snow drifting it's way into our entryway. and the red? well, the door came primed, so we had to pick a color, and according to many asian and other cultures, a red door attracts love, luck and wealth. no-brainer choice for me...

i love it!

the kids had a blast watching daddy work on it...

one of the several days we got up to mom and dad's:

the kids spent time with auntie sarah....

... "bapa"...

..."gamma"...

..cousins...

... took a break to fill daddy's hubcap with gravel...

... met stephanie...

... played with uncle "tid"...

... and learned relatively well to play together. for the most part.

there are moments...!

we also attempted potty-training. after slacking for the last two weeks or so, we'll be trying it again soon. sometimes the schedule is just too full for it to even be worth trying!

cole's methods have somewhat to be desired as he potty-trains george...

... but george doesn't seem to mind too much!

we DID have one success!!

daddy taught cole the finer points of shaving (mommy laid down the law- daddy gets "no-shave november" to go scruffy, if that's what he wants. the other eleven months require regular appointments with the razor).

pretend shaving cream- all the fun, no mess!

miss squish certainly wasn't out of the picture! she's been her normal happy self (for the most part)!

an encounter with the toilet paper...

... and his first shiner! the lesson learned that day was "forget scissors; don't run with legos!"

seriously, folks. it was a lego. a green one, if you must know.
(this was about 10 minutes after the accident)

the next day, it was still there! poor kiddo...

she's the master of goofy faces!

there was a day when she didn't want to nap. at. all, so madison and mommy had some fun time together. it's pretty rare that the two of us can just play away on the floor without some looming toddler-influenced threat, so we took advantage of it! i have SO many photos, i wish i could share them all, but alas, time and tide wait for no uploader.

cole and george watched the homecoming parade the other weekend.

it goes right past our house for easy viewing!

cole was SO cute- he was holding george up, saying "see!"

madison got a LONG ride from cole- he figured out how to push the exersaucer (walkabout, whatever) in a circle and did it for a good 20 minutes one day. i got video too- they were having a ball! you should have heard the giggles and screeches...

madison got her very first baby doll! we realized that she's got only boy toys to play with and really needed something more feminine. she got all excited over the baby cabbage patch at mom and dad's, so it was high time she got a "baby" of her own. cole's laid some claim to it, too, but i guess that's fair, since madi's a pro at 'driving' his cars.

checking out baby's eyes...

she was SO cute, talking up a storm, telling it all she knew!

and not to be left out, cole picked out a four-wheeler. he even ditched the general "hemi!!" term he gives to anything with four wheels and called it his "whee-wer" for awhile.

speaking of other cole-ism's, we've noticed a big jump in his vocab. a few times, he's even put three words together ("i run, mommy!" and "where bapa go?"). to keep him somewhat entertained during longer diaper changes (the smelly ones), sometimes we'll say "oh, sick!" in place of "oh gag me, that's raunchy". well, it wasn't long before he started saying "sick!" in his cute little voice. before it was with prompting; tonight, as he watched me try to scrape pizza crust dough off my fingers, his little face screwed up and he proudly proclaimed, "SICK!!"

i laughed.

thanks for bearing with me as i try to compile the last month (almost) into one, long, time-challenged post. there's plenty of photos i've had to leave out and i'm sure i've forgotten a good portion of the little things that are worth mentioning, but slowly they'll come back to me and eventually make their way onto a post or two.

the good thing about being without a computer? i've had plenty of time to work on hat orders!! i have a new one- the "olivia" hat. it's not posted to the green*vanilla baby blog yet, but for those of you who are on facebook, it's been added there.

thanks for stopping in to catch up- it's great to be connected again!