Who Dropped the TV?

There's a television on my porch and it isn't from either of our moms. Any ideas?

Meadow Pictures

I know I just posted two seconds ago, but I couldn't resist putting up these pictures of our Flower Child frolicking through the meadow.

A Fabtakulous Weekend!

Oh my gosh! We had a great weekend! Everything we did seemed very spontaneous (as in, only planned a day in advance, or not planned at all) and everything was super fun.
Saturday morning, Martin woke up early and went hunting out at Uncle Johnny's. (Lazy Q Farm!) The girls and I woke up around 6 and spent a long time playing on the bed with Theodore (not pictured--he was probably trying to eat the camera.) It was a funny, cozy way to start the day, long before the sun came up. The girls love to just roll and bounce around on our big bed now, and Anja is now allowed to play upstairs, since she's so good at getting up and down our [ridiculously steep] stairs now. She loves to go upstairs and tuck in her toys and tell me that they are sleeping. It's VERY adorable.

No squirrels for Martin that morning, but when he got home we jumped in the car with him and met his folks and his sister out at Wolf Park for their first annual "Walk with the Wolves" fundraiser. This was a great deal because you just paid a fee to have a "pack" (ours was "Anja's Pack") and they had their own big sponsers who would give them a certain amount of money per lap walked. We walked a whole two laps. You might think we weren't there very long to have only walked two laps around a pretty small park, but you'd be wrong! Anja walked the whole second lap by herself. We were out there until lunch time. I love Wolf Park. And Anja loved it too!! We spent about 15 minutes at one point sitting on a bench by the fences so I could nurse Greta, and a wolf came right up and stood there for most of the time. Anja was so excited! I think she got it that they weren't exactly dogs, because she never said "woof." She knew they were special. Also, they have the bison, and I thought that was cool, though Anja didn't really care about them. The weather was absolutely perfect--cool and drizzly. VERY fallish. It was actually the weather that made TusaRebecca and me REALLY want to do this. She wanted to invite my family, but I told her they were in Florida. I didn't realize they'd gotten back the night before! Whoops! Hopefully they'll forgive me and mark their calendars for next year. I don't think Anja would've looked this unhappy in her carseat after the walk, if she had known we were going to TC's for lunch! On the way home from there both girls fell asleep, so we picked up some coffee and went for a country drive. We saw a lot of covetable farms.... *sigh*

We did our weekend grocery run, then my parents came by to tell us all about their trip to Disney World. Sounds like they had a great time and they brought back cute freezy mugs for the girls! Anja LOVES hers, and insists that Greta drink from hers even though Greta doesn't know how to use a straw....

That night we went out to the Linden Conservation Club for Martin to shoot his guns a little bit. I didn't take any pictures while we were there, but Anja had a wonderful time gathering flowers and leaves and rocks and sticks and arranging them very artfully on an old dried-out tree stump. It was adorable!

This morning it was time to leave for church, and this is how we found Anja.

She was sitting on the stairs "nursing" her doll!!!!!! Does it just KILL YOU, how cute she is?! (For the record, Martin was the one who found her on the stairs. He's only in the picture because Anja's really into this thing where she loves us to sit down with her, so she pats the floor beside her and says our name, and that means "daddy, please sit down." She even asks the cat and dog!)

After mass Greta napped and Martin and I made these funny baked spiced apples. They turned out okay, though a little undercooked. We packed them up and took them with us back out to Uncle Johnny's farm where we had a lovely afternoon with my aunt and uncle and cousin, Hope. It was so much fun to just hang out with them! Martin has really enjoyed being able to hunt out there, and he was thrilled to be able to go out today and help them clean up for their Fall Party that is next weekend. I didn't do anything. Hope and I just sat around and talked while everyone else worked. But we all had a good time! Afterward, we went to McDonald's in Attica for a little bit of dinner. Anja loves french fries. I mean, LOVES. We realized we couldn't go home then because Anja hadn't had a nap so she would fall asleep, and it was 5:00, that terrible in-between time when a nap means doom. So we went back to the farm. Everyone else had left, but Martin had his gun in the car so he went down to the woods...

And shot a squirrel. Anja and Greta and I had gone down to play in the field and we were lucky enough to see (and get pretty close to) a deer, followed by two more. It was very exciting! Anja loves being outside and she loves rocks. She likes sticks too, but she LOVES rocks. She collected a lot and put them all on the stroller, which ended up being a bad idea to take down the hill.... but Martin got it back to the car for us, and he gave me this opportunity to photograph the ultimate family man:

Oh, I guess it's really dark. Oh well, it was cute. GREAT WEEKEND!

On the Move

I put Greta down on the floor today, and she immediately bolted toward this colorful hat that was on the floor. Hands and knees, moving just as they are supposed, to REAL CRAWLING, the few feet to that weird hat. She doesn't usually do that. She tends to favor the fling-herself-forward method to get to whatever she wants. I like to put appealing items a little ways in front of her and see how fast she can get to it. This is only a game we can play when Anja's not around though, because Anja is a major Toy Stealer. She is, however, really good at trading. If she wants what Greta has (she ALWAYS wants what Greta has) she will go get something else for Greta. This isn't so bad. At least it's better than the simple grab-and-run.

I got a gift certificate to Von's for my birthday last year. For those of you who don't know, my birthday is ten days away.... or something like that. Anyway, I still haven't spent the gift certificate. So tonight we had leftover chicken pot pie (WAY better than I'd expected it to be, having not used a recipe!) then bundled the girls in rain gear and headed up the hill to Von's. It was a FABULOUS rainy night walk, and we got hot chocolate at Vienna too. With the gift certificate we bought the new Eels album, which we haven't listened to yet, but Martin just came in and informed me that we'll be going to my uncle's farm on Sunday to help him clean up for his fall party, which is next weekend. This is great because Anja will LOVE to be there, my aunt and uncle are really fun, and Martin has been hunting out there and he's been looking forward to an opportunity to make a kind of payment. This will be perfect. And it's kind of a long drive out there, so we'll get to listen to our new CD. Hooray!

Tomorrow Martin's going squirrel hunting in the early morning. While he does that, I suppose the girls and I will make our weekly trip to the farmers market. He (Martin) was telling me about some delicious spiced apples he made in college, so I'm going to get a bunch of apples and try the recipe out. Also we make some baked beans with apples in them that are really good. I'm kind of all about apples these days. Anyway, after he gets back, mid-morning, we are going to meet up with his sister at Wolf Park and to their benefit walk. Anja will be so excited to see wolves!!! She will say "woof! woof!" the whole entire time, I just know she will. Evidently when you sign up, you sign up as a "pack" and TusaRebecca did it over the phone, but she made Anja our official pack leader.

Bedtime! Happy weekend!

Tags, Tags, Tags

Anja has hit another stage. The one where she wants the tags cut off of all her toys. This is not really a big deal--I remember doing the same thing when I was a kid, because those tags are annoying--but I have to wonder, if I cut the tags off, HOW WILL I KNOW IF BEAR IS MACHINE WASHABLE?!

I'm considering starting an envelope full of carefully labeled, cut-off tags. Is that a little over the top?

How Can He Be So Industrious?

I came downstairs this morning, took my cup of coffee and left Martin and Anja to fend for themselves while I sat and read the blogs. When I came back to the front of the house, Anja was naked and Martin was underneath the bathroom sink cleaning out a clogged drain. It's 6:30 in the morning and he's taking the plumbing apart. I wish I were so motivated!

Our Sunday was just as nice as our Saturday. We walked to the 9:30 mass and afterward just kind of played with the girls until naptime, during which I made an apple pie. Since Martin and I can't eat an entire apple pie by ourselves, we walked it down to K.Dee's and shared it with everyone down there. When we got back, Martin got out his Ice Cream Ball (a Christmas present from two years ago that was still in its box!) and we made ice cream! Then we ate the ice cream with our pie. Superfun! My parents came over to say goodbye as they are leaving for their vacay this morning. We were meeting an artist at Vienna at 7:00 to hang a show, but we went early and Martin dropped me off there with my new Mothering Magazine, and he took the girls to the grocery store. (He had used up all of our salt and cream making the ice cream, haha!) I had a nice little 45 minutes by myself to devour my magazine before the artist got there, and Martin and the girls showed up just as we were finishing hanging the prints. It was a very enjoyable evening!

So this artist is Jeff Hagen and his stuff is really neat, and he's a funny guy. It was good to talk to him, especially because we were neighbors for a little while when I lived in my old apartment. I told him where I'd lived and he said, "Were you the girl with the kitchen fire?!" Hahaha, remembered so fondly. Then we talked about all our drug-dealer neighbors, and had some laughs. Nice guy! He has some stuff at Vienna now and will have a bigger show up at K.Dee's in November.

I needed to read the blogs this morning for inspiration. I think someone downtown should start a neighborhood petting zoo. I was saddened that Stuckey Farms didn't have any animals running around, and I am craving some animal time for both me and Anja.

An Applicious Saturday!

I have this dream of having a weekend where we wake up, and just spontaneously decide to do something fun, and then are actually are able to DO it. This is the way I've always envisioned life as a little family. But in real life, our weekends are always packed full of obligations. Family obligations, house obligations, work obligations.... We never seem to have a free day. A normal Saturday around here is to wake up, get ready, head to the Farmers Market, then spend the rest of the day doing regular things. Not today! Today we woke up, got ready, looked up apple orchards, packed up a few things and headed down to Stuckey Farms. And we had a wonderful time! It was the perfect way to spend a Saturday. We got two bags full of apples (for about $6!), most of which Anja picked (until she got tired and Martin had to pick the last few). We rode on their tractor wagon out to the pumpkin patch where we just kind of played in the pumpkins, then we walked back to the main store. They have bees making honey (I don't think Anja knew what they were) and all sorts of jarred goods that we didn't buy. The place was super busy, so we'd like to go back sometime earlier in the morning. The girls slept all the way home, we were able to hang out at home for awhile, then head to confessions at St. Ann's. We were going to stay for 4:30 mass, but Anja was CRAAAAZY, so we went back home instead. Oh well!

Last night I played for Gallery Walk, which was also Two Tulips' 10th Anniversary party, as well as their grand re-opening in their new (and improved!) location. It was really fun to play a Gallery Walk again. Martin kept the girls at home for 2 hours, then brought them down for the last hour of it when Greta got hungry. They were SO well behaved, and we (Kim and I) closed up the night with "How Much is that Doggie in the Window" featuring Anja Schap on the "woofs." She. was. awesome!!!!!!!!! She actually did them! And they were perfect, and so incredibly cute!!!!! Greta got passed around to all the grandmothers, of course, and Kim and I had our fill of cake and punch, as well as some frozen "Dirty Ivan"s that Kim went up and got from K.Dee's, which were spectacular. It was a great night!

I'm getting back into playing music. Now that Martin isn't working late very often anymore, and never on Thursdays, I'm usually able to make it down to K.Dee's on Thursday nights in time to play for an hour or so with Kim and George. I'm going to play at the Octoberfest on the 3rd, and I might do that as a solo show because Kim is playing with two other bands later in the day. I played at the Ivy Tech homecoming last weekend, which was fun, and Kim and I are playing at the Delphi Library later in October as well. It's just like the old days!

Now that we've got all these delicious apples though, I have a good amount of pie crust to be making.

The Heat Is On

It's really that time of year--heater season! I've run a few different places this morning and I noticed that the buildings are all toasty warm, but I go outside and the temperature change is shocking. I love it! It makes me more excited for fall than I've been in the past few weeks. I've been kind of dreading fall. Not because I don't love fall, but because I just haven't been ready for summer to be over. Next summer will be less dissappointing, I swear. I will try to get something out of my garden, I will go swimming, I will get a tan, and I will spend more time outside with the girls. We did eat well this summer, that's one good thing.

I went to the dentist this morning FOR THE LAST TIME. Finally, this whole silly ordeal with my tooth is over! And it's only been 14 months! It's just been one thing after another though... for example, my appointment today was actually supposed to be on Monday, but when I went to it, they told me my crown hadn't arrived yet, so I had to reschedule! Gr. Oh well, it's all set now.

Greta is actually beginning to crawl, even if her progress comes in tiny steps. All last night she was practicing lifting her hands off the ground while rocking on her hands an knees, and she got one full movement of the hands and knees moving together completed. Go, Greta, Go! Soon she'll be zipping around, keeping up with Anja. I can hardly believe it. She has her six-month checkup next week and I'm really eager to see how much she weighs. five hundred pounds, at least. This girl is a chunk.

Martin and I like to plan out our retirement. The thing I'm most looking forward to in retirement is wearing clothes from L.L.Bean and Coldwater Creek. I kind of like old lady clothes. Obviously I'm not going to wear them now.... but I kind of look forward to being old and shopping solely from catalogues.

I realize this isn't the advertised controversial post, but maybe I'll get to that later. Right now I am up at my mom's house, where Anja and Greta stayed to play while I was at the dentist. Anja loves playing in Ooma's backyard!

Anja has been eating all of her meals on an egg tray lately. Compartmentalization is a wonderful thing in Anjaland.

Delicious Coffee Companion? Or Sock of Death!?!?

Note to self: never, never, NEVER pass along baked goods to new neighbors has "welcome to the neighborhood" presents before tasting first.

When we first moved to this house, Tara made us biscotti and hot chocolate and brought it over to us even before we'd fully moved in. It was so nice of her (and she brought the whole family!) and we exchanged phone numbers and that was the beginning of wonderful things! So I told Tara that I was going to do the same for the new girl next door--Kelsey. So I made some cranberry-orange biscotti and took it over to her tonight while it was even still warm. Also we took her some tea. So later in the evening, Martin and I were having some coffee and I thought I'd taste the biscotti, since I'd left a few pieces for us. Oh. My. Gosh. I seriously couldn't bite it. It was a brick. So then Martin tried a different piece, more from the middle. Same problem. I was so embarrassed, I packed up some peanut butter cookies we had and made Martin go over with apologies and give them the cookies instead. When Martin got home (and after we'd regained consciousness after laughing ourselves into comas) we thought the biscotti might make a good protection weapon. He put a piece in a sock and beat the bejeezus out of a 7up can! Oh, the fun we have. I'm not sure this whole baking hobby is really for me.

Today I played music out at the Ivy Tech homecoming. It's been awhile since I've played solo, and it was a good feeling. In the morning the girls and I went to the Farmers Market and saw all our friends and I also played a song there since Joe and Linda were playing and they invited me to play. Joe held Greta, and later on out at Ivy Tech, he was trying to teach Anja to speak Chinese. Funny, since Anja hasn't yet gotten the hang of basic English.

Then tonight was Germanfest down at St. Boniface. We walked down there at 7:00 to help at my brother-in-law's brat booth, but I was very grateful to see that he was filled up with helpers and didn't need us right then. Martin just now went back down to help, but I was glad to be able to come back home because even before we left the house, Anja was more than ready for bed. She was really going nuts. She did have a nap today, but it wasn't a very long one, and she had a big, fun afternoon. And she saw her cousins! Always superfun.

The tentative plan for tomorrow is to go up to the river and make soap for the Feast which is coming up in just a few short weeks! I can hardly believe it. The summer really flew by.

Anja got some dog stickers from Von's, and she stuck them all over her belly.
The girls playing on the floor.
Anja and me up on the climby thing at Tapawingo Park.
Anja has learned the joy of blowing bubbles in her milk!

Greta being pretty.

Anja helping me make bread! Which, by the way, did sound like it is oatmeal bread, based on my last post. This new bread is actually buttermilk bread. There's no oatmeal about it, which is a good thing, since the oatmeal bread I was making was gross. This buttermilk bread, however, is A-MAZE-ING. Okay, it's still not as good as when my mom makes it; which is not as good as when my grandma made it.... but STILL. I'm getting there. And besides, you have to cut me some slack... look at my helper!

I'll make another post sooner than later, and it might end up being a controversial one, but it's about something my neighbor informed me of this evening that I find utterly ridiculous. But I'll leave you hanging with that, heh heh heh.

An Afterthought

P.S. What is gluten, and why is everyone so against it these days?

Packing Up My White Pants

Sorry, sorry, sorry for the lack of posting. I actually had a post written earlier this week, but I decided it was too depressing to publish. It was all about how fall is coming and it's coming too soon because I don't feel like I've gotten enough out of my summer. My garden croaked almost as soon as I planted it, my suntan was pathetic, and I spent most of the time indoors because it seems like someone is always hungry, sleeping, or crying. It's a rare thing when both girls are happy and ready to go at the same time. As a result, we don't get out much. So maybe I should be glad that fall and winter are coming because it'll be a good excuse to stay indoors and I won't feel like such a lame-o anymore.

We've been having fun lately, but we always manage to stay out five minutes too late. On Labor Day we went over to the house of one of my sister and brother-in-law's friends, the Bosmas. Their house is very cool and when you stand on their deck you feel like you are in The Elven Forest. We had a good time; ate good food, swung on their rope swing, played with their children, and Anja had a wonderful time gathering rocks in the creek. We dressed the girls in jammies for the ride home, but we didn't make it there without The Meltdowns.

Yesterday Martin took the day off work to "get things done." He went hunting in the morning, then spent much of the rest of the day doing things that are impossible to do for someone who works regular business hours. It was a very pleasant day. We took the girls over to Tapawingo Park late in the day and Anja LOVES going down the slides. We found a very fun praying mantis as well. I love them.

I've been making this oatmeal bread lately that has only turned out yummy ONCE. Every other time (and it's been many times) it's been a brick. So my mom gave me her recipe (and some bread flour, and some buttermilk, and some yeast....) and I made four loaves today. WOW. I'm not sure if it's a family secret, but if it isn't, I'll definitely post the recipe on The Cooking Blog. It's delicious! And four loaves at once!

I can't really think of anything else that's going on around here. I've started knitting a hat for Anja and it ought to be done by the time our first grandchild is born. Our house is a complete wreck and I can't seem to get it under control. Something ate through my clothesline, but our dryer has been doing better lately; I think it just needed a rest. The closing for the Cooks' house was set for today, so we should be getting new neighbors soon. Oh, and The Feast is coming up, so I am making a birthday present wish list in my head.

I wish I had a million dollars, or at least a few hundred, to re-do the Big Back Room. I have such great visions of it, but they all include very expensive improvements. Like wood flooring, a wood burning stove, lanternish light fixtures, and a very specific bed that they used to sell at Copper Creek Canyon, which has been out of business since before I was married. It also involves building closets and transforming the mudroom into something cute, yet functional. Okay, scratch the million. I need a zillion dollars for all the improvements I want to make!

Martin's office is on a retreat today. I think this is hilarious and wonderful. I was supposed to make tabouleh, but SOMEONE (M*cough*artin!) forgot to remind me, and so I just had to throw together some peanut butter cookies at the last minute instead. I hope they are all having fun! His office cracks me up.

I LOVE how Anja loves animals and is totally unafraid of them. People with dogs are always so apologetic, and I don't think I am ever able to convince them that she REALLY AND TRULY doesn't mind being knocked down by a big dog. We are in the back room right now, and she and Karenin are getting along so nicely. Karenin is just following her around everywhere, and if she gets in Anja's way, Anja just shoves her aside. Anja is MUCH nicer to Karenin these days than she is to Theodore. I know that you all are going to vomit in your mouths a little bit when I say this, but Theodore and Anja are seriously like siblings. She gets SO MAD at him sometimes! It's hilarious. Sometimes she'll pull a chair out from the table to stand on and Theodore will jump up and sit on it, and she will scream at him and start pushing him off, except he's so fat, he just sits there and looks at her and she just screams louder and starts hitting him. It's the funniest thing ever, until I have to intervene, and Theodore is so fat he's slippery, which is pretty disgusting, and also makes it difficult to pick him up. Oh, but I love to watch them together! I love to see Anja get angry with him. Because then at the same time, when we wake her up in the morning sometimes Theodore comes in for a morning snuggle, and she'll just put her arms around him and they will cuddle up together for a little bit. They are seriously best friends.

Okay, you can stop barfing now, I'm done.

... And then Anja threw up.

This seems to be the ending of many otherwise-perfectly-normal-and-enjoyable nights. Poor baby. Yet another reason why I tend to freak out about her getting enough sleep... because when she doesn't, we end up staying up having late-night baths and washing barf out of the carpet or the carseat, or both.

The girls and I had a lovely day, except for that part of the morning when the blasted dog took off through a hole in the fence and was gone for awhile, then I chased her down and the nice man at the library helped me to get her home so I could run back inside to make sure Anja hadn't killed Greta in the ten minutes I was gone. I am definitely going to bake him some peanut butter cookies next week. (I was going to do it today, as you might've read on Facebook, and maybe I should have... but I cleaned the bathrooms instead.) We had been planning on going to my sister's house for a playdate, but the dog kind of spoiled those plans. Oh well.

But anyway, the rest of the day was really nice. Both girls took a long nap AT THE SAME TIME, which is why I was able to clean both bathrooms. When they woke up we walked up to Vienna to meet Martin and our friend Matt on Martin's lunch break. It was great to get the long walk, but I somehow always forget how completely insane campus is at this time of year. I'm so afraid of getting run over, either by a vehicle or a skateboarder, or a large herd of sorority girls. But it was a very nice little break in the day, and Martin gave us a ride home, which was also nice. Also, my mom stopped by to see the girls and deliver some homemade soup, which we will eat tomorrow for lunch, because...

When Martin got home this evening I suggested we use the giftcard to Logan's Roadhouse that we have in the bottom of our giftcard drawer. I sometimes think to look through our giftcards when I'm getting stuff out of the drawer, and I had forgotten about that one because it was all the way on the bottom. Martin thought we could get dinner for both of us for just the amount of the giftcard, and he was right! We only went 40 cents over! Which was great, because then we were already using the card to leave a tip. So we got dinner for all of us for only the cost of a tip. Plus, it was really fun and the girls were AWESOME. So cute and happy and great. Another little surprise was that there was a couple next to us who seemed to be very grandparentish, and they gave us a card for a free appetizer! How nice of them!! Also, ROSSIE was there!! He has a girlfriend who is very pretty. I hadn't seen him in almost two years. Isn't that hard to believe. I used to see him every day! *sigh*

Well, anyway, it was a really nice little family date. And we haven't eaten out at a real restaurant in ages. We came home and Greta pretty much went straight to bed, but Anja was kind of wound up and since she got such a good nap, I waited until 8:00 to try and put her down. But she was really hyper and wasn't going for it... so we let her stay up a little later, and then she was being so darn cute that neither of us wanted to put her to bed. So she just stayed up and we kept playing with her and it got later... and later... and later... until finally we tried a couple more times to get her to bed, unsuccessfully, and Martin took her for a drive.... and that's when she threw up. Big, big mess.

BUT SHE WAS BEING SO CUTE. I wish I had a video camera attached to the end of my nose so I could document every cute thing she does and then share all my little videos on this blog. But I can't explain their cuteness. When I tell something she does, I just make it sound stupid. You just have to be there and see her funniness to appreciate it.

This weekend ought to be nice. Tomorrow is Global Fest and LayFlats, and we're going to try to hit both in the morning. Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Surprises

Last night Martin went out to Barnes & Noble to get himself a book with the giftcard he got from his mom for his birthday. He came back with his book (a Zombie Invasion book that only a real weirdo would be interested in. Martin is all about the Zombie Invasion these days... I'm beginning to think he actually believes in it) as well as a book for me! "Notes from the Underbelly" by Risa Green! It's just as funny the second time reading it, and it's still ranked as THE funniest book I've ever read in my life. I LOVE IT. Not only that, but also on his giftcard he brought back yummy drinks for us from the B&N cafe, so we sat on the porch with our delicious drinks (mine was a pumpkin spice latte--decaf, for Greta) and read our new books together. Well... for a few minutes, until the misquitos started eating us alive and we moved inside to the couch. Anyway, it was a nice little treat. I love surprises!

Something weird happened today and I can't decide if it's a sign, or if it's just me reading too far into things. So remember way back in July, when Greta had that high fever and we took her to the ER? They did a urine test on her (awful, btw) because they thought if she had a bladder infection it could be bad for her kidneys. Anyway, the original thing came back clear. But today we got a letter in the mail asking to call the ER and ask for the nurse about those test results. Turns out, the sample did grow something. But that was more than a month ago, so I ought to be able to just disregard it, right? WRONG. Because for the past two or three days, Greta has been very fussy. We've been blaming the same old scapegoat: Teething. I really haven't been worried at all, until I got this letter. And I'm wondering, is that weird letter a sign that I should take her in instead of waiting until her next checkup, which isn't until the 20th? Or is the weird letter nothing, and I'm just making things up to go along with it? Hmmm.....

Sometimes when I'm picking up the house at night after the girls are in bed I start looking forward to the morning when I get to have my coffee and when Anja will wake up and be so happy and funny. Sometimes I leave things set up for her on her little table that weren't there when she went to bed. Last night it was a few dogs sitting in some little chairs. Tonight it's some different dogs, not sitting in chairs. She likes to find things.

Boy, am I beat. It's been a surprisingly long week. I'm glad this weekend is a holiday!

Kids Songs, Pretend Play, Laughing Spots, etc.

Anja is getting so big and fun. The other day in the car we started singing "How Much is that Doggie in the Window" and I did the singing part, but she did the "woof! woof!" parts. She is very good at it. After a few times of doing "woof woof" she got kind of excited and carried away and just started "woof"ing through the whole rest of the song... but that's okay. It still sounded good.

She's learning lots of animal sounds. Not many of them actually sound like what the animal says... and many of them sound very similar to each other, but I can detect the subtle differences. Anyway, she knows what a duck says (sort of) and I've put her little wooden rolly ducks on the bottom shelf of the new kitchen cupboard with her books and crayons. Yesterday she flung open the doors, grabbed the rolly ducks and started quacking like a madman. It was really weird... and hilarious.

She carries her dolls around with her everywhere. She has Cook Baby and Baby Doll, and for the most part Cook Baby wins out, but many times she'll carry them both around, or give Baby Doll to me to carry around while she takes care of Cook Baby. (She must think I don't have enough babies to care for.) Sometimes I am very proud of her and the way she cares for her dolls. She is very loving; she nurses them, puts them to sleep in their cradle, feeds them Cheerios.... but sometimes I wonder where I went wrong in my example. For instance, today, when she came to me proudly, wanting to show me what she'd done, and led me by the hand to the kitchen cabinet. She opened it, and there was Cook Baby, stuffed into the cabinet with all the pots and pans. She thought it was great! I don't know why. I promise, I've never put any of my babies away in the kitchen cabinet, no matter HOW foggy sleep deprivation has made me.

The other funny thing about both our girls is what Martin calls their "laughing spots." Anja's is under her chin. Gracie has found it and thinks it's a pretty great thing. Greta's is right in the middle of her belly. Greta is especially ticklish if you use your face for tickling instead of your fingers.

Greta is not crawling yet, but she is still standing on that "any day" mark. And she's beginning to make forward progresss instead of just backward. Nowhere near sitting up, last I checked.

And that is the update on our girlies.