winter

this is how henny feels about the winter....

right now i'd have to agree.

baby words

this post is just for me.

when henny was 15 months old he wasn't really talking much. he said a few things, but not consistently. this was a sharp contrast to the way bee was. she was speaking in short sentences by that age. at henny's 15 month check up i mentioned that he wasn't talking much. i half expected the pediatrician to say it was no big deal, but she said it could be normal but that we could talk about some early intervention at 18 months. i was a bit crushed. it would be fine if henny needed extra help, and i would do anything to give him anything he needed, but i didn't want to think about it. i wanted someone to tell me it was normal. that is what my friends are for. all of my friends with boys told the same tale. no words until 18 months, grunting more than speaking until 2, and on and on. this made me feel much better, but i still wondered when the words would come. 

i am so happy to say that the words are here! henny is entering that parrot stage and he is saying so much. he is telling us what he needs, through words and signs, about 75% of the time. he tells these little stories that are three words long, but tell it all. 

so, this is the part that is strictly of interest to me. i just don't want to forget. these are the words that henny says now, at about 17.5 months:

mama

dada

mya

bubba (grampa)

kitty

all animal sounds: meow, moo, baa, oink, honk, quack, woof

ball

snow

shoe

socks

night night ("nie nie")

snowmobile ("bee-ole")

tree

light

more

please ("peas")

thank you ("tu tu")

bye bye

sauce

fishy

sasha

harriet ("hee-ot")

yes ("yeeaaah")

bus

hat

hot

stop

go

help

cookie ("coo-coo")

cracker ("ca-ca")

cheese

lala

gg

ut oh

sue

cindy ("ss-ss-dee")

cd

boo-boo

eat

teeth

no

he also signs:

water

help

more

please

music

bye bye

orange

apple

book

thank you

light

eat

i am so proud!

snowed in and makin' stuff

this past week found us trying to get back into our routine. we were supposed to get back on track with school and real meals and schedules. but mother nature had a different plan. instead, we had 2 snow days which allowed us to ease back into real life. it was actually really nice, the slower pace. we did many things around the house and kind of prolonged that holiday attitude for a few more days.

one day we made and canned five jars of marmalade. i found myself with an abundance of oranges and then saw this post, which was so timely. i used instructions right from the box of pectin. it worked wonderfully and everyone loves the marmalade. 

henny is no fool, he eats it marmalade side down....

and what goes better with marmalade than english muffins. D and i whipped these up in the middle of the week. it was our first time making them and i was so surprised to see that you cook them on a griddle. in the end we wished that we rolled them out a bit thicker, but everyone loves them and they do the trick. now i am bound and determined to make english muffins every month or so and keep them on hand in the fridge and freezer. it really wasn't much effort and is so affordable. 
my favorite dinner of the week and possible the past few months was noodles with pesto sauce.

never mind that the noodles were two-day-old leftovers. the pesto sauce was made from a cup of chopped basil from the summer. further strengthening my resolve to "put up" more food was thawing this tiny piece of summer. i made the sauce with the basil, a half block of cream cheese, a clove of purred garlic and salt. heaven. there was about twice as much pesto as necessary but not a single person in our family complained. we all licked our plates, in fact.

finally, on saturday i was blessed with about two and a half hours alone. in that time i managed to make this...
i had set out to make a wrap dress but quit when the math was getting too hard. converting a 2T dress to size 5 was just too much. so i made this up, right out of my own head. it is a copy of a dress that is sold at a cafe near here. i just learned as i went, and it was my first time with button holes. all in all i think it came out great. and bee loves it! she said it's her new annie dress, which is basically the highest compliment she can give.

bad baby!

thirty seconds alone in the bathroom. the result.......

oh 2008, how much did you rule?

wow, what a year! i haven't even put up a new calendar because i am sort of sad to see this year end. it was a really amazing year for us. i have written this post in my head many times, but i'm afraid it will still lack direction. i guess it's part year end highlights, part performance evaluation for me and part tooting my own horn. 

what i want remember about 2008, a list:

1. this year we were seriously healthy. i prepared whole food meals, for three meals a day, every day of the work week. i learned a lot, especially about homemade fake meat, and the whole family benefitted. it was especially awesome to see the kids eating all of these things that i know i had not even heard of until my adult life. they are so lucky.

2. this year we began using cloth diapers and have had amazing success. we have bought maybe 3 packages of disposables for vacation and emergencies since early spring. i wish we had done it sooner. it's not hard but does take effort and i am proud that we have been up for the challenge.

3. bee learned how to swim this year.

4. i lost what probably amounts to about 40 pounds this year. it's crazy to even think about it as a number. i know a lot was just baby weight, but a lot was all me (and cookies). more importantly though, i am so strong now. i have never been in this kind of shape. even though i feel like i have a long way to go before i look the way i want to, i FEEL so amazing. i can run (for up to 8 minutes at a time!!!) and i am STRONG.

5. we traveled as a family, out of the country, to aruba. this was one for the books. our trip couldn't have been better or more relaxing. the relaxing part came as a big surprise to me with our almost-crawling baby and three year old in tow, but relaxing it was. and the memories!

6. we grew a beautiful garden and reaped the benefits of an amazing farm share. all this amounted to much good cooking as well as some success with "putting up". 

7. bee switched schools and with the move we found an amazing fit for her and for us, what a good feeling.

8. we have watched henny grow from a tiny smiling, dozing, sling-goer to a running, laughing, mild attitude-having little boy! he is such a joy and watching him grow this year has been such a gift for us all. he is more than we could have imagined.

9. this year D and i officially settled on the fact that what we have here will be our family, period. i sometimes feel sadness about never being pregnant again, but mostly i feel a sigh of comfort. our family feels so good, and so complete with henny and bee. it just feels right.

10. finally, i managed to record the things that i felt were important for our family to remember, here. sometimes is was a joy and the words flowed, sometimes it was a chore. i am so happy now to have such a great record for us all. now if we could just find a site that makes a nice book of your blog.

and on tap for 2009 or dare i say, resolutions:

1. "put up" much more food this summer.

2. try to look people in the eye more.

3. create some sort of daily thanks ritual for the family. after the success of our thanks/giving trees i was inspired. 

thank you 2008, you were one hell of a year!