Gemma pulls up

Gemma discovered how much fun it is to pull herself up to standing this week. She just cackles with pleasure when she achieves the full stand....which usually results in her tumbling over. Which, usually gives me a heart attack.

She is just good enough to get herself pulled up, but has NO sense of balance, where her feet are or how much it will hurt if she bumps her head.

In the picture, I had put Gemma in the playpen and started reading a bedtime story to the big kids. A few minutes later, I looked up to see Gemma's beaming face. She was so proud of herself we took this quick picture...and then she tipped over....of course.

The kids!

The kids worked hard today at the wedding! William was the ring bearer, Amelia was the flower girl, and Gemma was cute! All three kids did an awesome job doing what they were supposed to do and looked adorable!

It's a nice day for a white wedding

Congratulations to Mike and Jenny on their wedding day! It will be fun to share a wedding anniversary with them as today is also our 11th (!) wedding anniversary!

Would you like to be an elf?

Just fill out an application!

Winter party madness!

We are a whirlwind of winter partyness around here! Tuesday, John stayed home from work so he could go eat pancakes with Amelia and Santa at the preschool.

Today it is my turn to go to the winter party at William's school! The party kicked off with a sing along and then some fun games.

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,
How is rodof? Can you pes git me a gold mine playm0b!l.

Love,
William

Santa!

Here are the kids visiting with Santa! William told Santa he would like a playm0b!l gold mine set, Amelia wants a Dora mermaid (awesome! She already has one) an Gemma wanted her 2 front teeth (again, awesome! She already has them!).

Cheese!

We took the kids to see Santa this week- see the snow? William could not be talked out of the Spider-Man shirt. Red is one of Santa's favorite colors after all!

Amelia admires Christmas tree

It's so beautiful mama!

From home

This is the picture text I received at work this week. Included was the message that our Gemma had crawled across the entire length of the house to get to this location. She was working so hard, she crawled out of her pants! Who needs baby toys?

Um..,what?

This should not be possible. No.

I know it doesn't look like it...

But this baby is mad at me. She is enjoying some exploring of finger foods. She has a few puffs (quick dissolve baby food) on her tray and she is very angry because she can't figure out how to put them in her mouth. If you look carefully, you will see she has a spoon in each hand. If she wants to put a puff in her mouth, she would have to put down a spoon. And she doesn't want to. So, she cries and cries. Just like a baby.

It's a good thing I took pity on her (after taking her picture) and helped her out!

Dinosaurs

Every week kindergarten is studying a new letter. They learn to write the letter and talk about the sounds it make, etc.

As part of William's homework every week, he has to come up with 5-10 words that begin with this letter and then draw a picture to illustrate (which is separate from the letter assignment featured here other times). As part of the directions, the teacher has asked parents to let students work on this independently. In particular, we aren't to help with spelling.

William sat at the kitchen table this last week, working on his letter 'P' homework page. It should be a simple task for him to come up with 10 words starting with 'P', but William has taken it to the next step by requiring himself (keep in mind this is not part of the actual assignment, this is something William is putting it upon himself) to have every single word be related to dinosaurs.

So, on this particular evening, William had come up with parasaurolophus and pachycephalosaurus. He was asking John for help with coming up with more dino names. John reminded William that William needed to try to come up with the words on his own.

Which is when Amelia piped up and said "how about pterodactyl?"

William and John looked at her with jaws dropped.

So, she helped them out by explaining to them "pterodactyl does start with P. It is just a silent P.".

So he did. See below. The assignment was then lovingly transported in his backpack TO school and crumpled up to come back home by the student himself.

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Conversations

Amelia: (chatters about preschool friends, snack time)...and soon we will have a party! Santa is coming and we are going to eat pancakes and salsa!

Mama: pancakes and salsa?

Amelia: yeah! Pancakes and salsa!

Mama: I think it is pancakes and sausage Amelia.

Amelia: that's what I said! Pancakes and salsa!*

* so here is where I admit my kiddos are well versed in salsa, but have no idea what sausage is. Because we don't eat sausage. Not for any deeply personal/religious reasons. Neither John or I enjoy it, so we don't buy it. Simple.



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Tooth #4

Front left tooth

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Tooth #4

Tooth number 4 broke through last night, and for perhaps the first time John was the first to notice!

Gemma crawls!

6 Months Old!

Dear sweet Gemma is now 6 months old as of yesterday. I baked half of
a cake to celebrate her being half of a year old. It was adorable
until it fell apart and the frosting didn't stick. Oh well.

We are in full Christmas prep mode - which is crazy this year.
Thankfully there has been this gift of an extra week between
Thanksgiving and Christmas or there would be some serious crazy.

Here is what is going on in Ms Gemma Bean's world.

Gemma is wearing 9-12 month clothes and and a few 12-18 month clothes.
We finally used up the size 2 diapers and have happily moved into
3's. this hopefully means we will be using our cloth diapers more
often since I'm not trying to use up the too small 2's any more.

Gemma is all about moving. You'll see in the pictures below, she
doesn't hold still for long. It was a fight to get any pictures of her
at all. She is army crawling everywhere which means we have had to
take a hard look at what toys are laying around in order to keep her
safe. She is loving her new found freedom. She is also working very
hard on the hands and knees crawling piece. She is able to do it and
practices and every opportunity.

We now have 3 teeth with at least one more coming soon.

I don't know if it is the crawling, the teeth or something else all
together, but Gemma has not slept through the night in.....I can no
longer remember. Most recently, she has been waking twice a night.
Which would account for my tiredness, perhaps.

On the food front, we are eating solid food everyday in very small
amounts - maybe 1-2 tablespoons is what I start with in a bowl. I
would estimate roughly 25% of it makes it until her belly at this
point. So far, Gemma has had peaches, squash, oatmeal and carrots.
Carrots are the runaway favorite - she has enjoyed these a great deal.

Although Gemma is not as one track minded about eating, her favorite
activity is far and away being snuggled up with mama for a snack and a
cuddle. She strongly prefers to sleep snuggled up with me (we are not
encouraging this) and loves to nap with me. I have to say it is a lot
of work and a lot of fun to be this little ones favorite person.

Nickname: somehow this month Gemma bean has picked up a nickname. I
know I gave it to her, I just not entirely sure where I got it from.
It just sounds super cute together! (Try it, you'll see)

 

J is for....

Jam? Jelly? Juice? Jello?


No, according to William j is for jrassik.

(Jurassic)

The fleet is complete!

Here is this year's Christmas ornament! I started making ornaments 14 years ago when my first nephew was a baby. Look how many I make now! (Answer:14 this year)

Baby 3, tooth #3

Gemma's third tooth broke through today! Here's hoping for a little more sleep tonight!

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Uh oh!

We have some honest to goodness hands and knees crawling happening around here! I was hoping she would want to wait until after Christmas so I didn't have to worry about her ripping over the tree on herself. No such luck!

O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree

We finally have our tree up and decorated! As expected, we probably won't be able to put many ornaments down low and I'm going to have to gate off the tree before I can put presents under it. Despite the picture below, the kids are very excited about the tree and looking at each of the ornaments. Getting 3 kids to look at the camera is quite the challenge!

Poop

Sometimes you just need a bath.

Baby food!

In the last week, we have been slowly introducing Gemma to baby food!

I meant to start her out with butternut squash and I even had some the I made myself with a squash from our church community garden. However, when I defrosted the yellowy orange baby food, it turned out to be peaches. Oops. So, Gemma's first food was peaches.

She loved the attention at first and liked trying something new. However, she was not pleased that she was not allowed to control the spoon. It was certainly a challenge to get the food into her mouth with her arms waving around like a windmill. Short, yet destructive little windmills.

After several bites, Gemma decided she wasn't loving the peaches. The flavor was perhaps too strong? She made some very entertaining faces - which the other two kids enjoyed a great deal.

Since then, we have been slowly introducing her to other foods every few days. She has now had peaches, squash, and oatmeal!

Hi!

I was trying to do some shopping this week and I was very distracted by this adorable baby in the stroller....

Pretty girl hair!

Amelia has been very patient with me lately and let me try some new things with her hair. This is one of my favorites because it keeps the hair out of her face and makes it easier to comb through at bedtime! Bonus: it is adorable!

Dear Santa....

I know what I want for Christmas!

Gemma has been working so hard at scooting around and getting herself moving. Over thanksgiving, my brother in law had his iPad open on the floor. I have never seen my child move so fast! She made a beeline straight for the iPad. So cute... And a little taste of what is to come at our house very soon!

Once she reached the iPad, she was so delighted with herself. She giggled and then immediately gave it a taste test by licking the screen. Once she had that out of the way, she was very entertained by the lights and how every time she hit it with her hand, she color and lighting would change. Mostly because she was deleting emails ....

Folder!!!

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It's hard

....to be in the holiday spirit when it is 75 degrees out and everyone is wearing shorts.

So, I did the only possible thing: I put on my running shoes, went for a long run, did some Christmas work and then had some grilled chicken for dinner. With quinoa. Yum.

*not all that exciting, but I'm back at it once a week running. I enjoy it SO much. Hopefully by taking it slow this time I won't have the heel problems that sidelined me for so long a few years ago! I can hope!
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