This is January?

So many times this month I've caught myself wondering if I somehow accidentally brought the Arizona weather home with me.  Because even my irises and daffodils are confused--they're coming up!

The way things are looking, I might need to start my garden in February this year...

Needless to say, the kids are loving the opportunity to be outside instead of house-bound.

Catherine loves nothing as much as sitting outside, throwing grass, dirt and mulch.

Stealing the neighbor boys' football is also very fun.

As is riding your scooter through mulch (?)

Since it wasn't snowing, we figured we might as well rake all those leaves in our backyard.

Seth was a big help.

Having kids makes everything fun all over again.

On another lovely January day, we met some friends for lunch at a local farm, and then let the kids run wild:

Or sit wildly, for those who aren't yet running:

But sometimes we stay inside and play with our (massive amounts of) toys: 

Racing cars down the stairs

Daddy fixing Mommy's terrible engineering job.

And now for some photographic evidence of what has become a daily occurrence at our house: 

Jon & Seth, fighting over the Kindle.

Every day.

Usually repeatedly.

Oh, and I guess one time it did snow:

Once.

And then melted.

How is this possibly the same place that dumped over two feet of snow in one night two years ago???

Catherine at 11 Months

(No, my kid isn't always dressed this cute.  Thus the picture taking--the boots are too adorable!)

Oh my goodness, do we have a strong-willed little girl at our house.  She knows what she wants, when she wants it, and if you don't give it to her THIS VERY SECOND you are in big trouble with The Princess.  Of course, she never wants any of her toys--she wants Seth's Legos, marbles, and toothbrush, and my face lotion.

Notice: Lego in mouth, reaching for marbles.

Other accomplishments this month:

*Crawling up the stairs.  She'll follow Jonny upstairs when he gets home from work.

Both legs up: 

Almost there: 

Up the stairs! 

*Pointing at what she wants (like I said before--usually something she can't have: glass objects, knives, candy, etc.)

*Standing in her crib.  This has actually been a royal pain--at naptime I will lay her down only to have her immediately stand up and start playing.  Which eventually turns into screaming.  There have been a few days where she has played/screamed for a full hour before I just gave up and went to get her.

*Probably transitioning to one nap a day (see reason above).

*Eating literally everything.  Thai peanut stir fry, chicken curry casserole, Indian food, Kung Pao chicken, Tuscan bean soup...you name it, this girl will eat it.  Exceptions include peaches, pineapple (except on pizza), and any cheese that isn't high-quality mozzarella.  Oh, and anything that even resembles baby food (applesauce included).

*Eating a TON.  This girl is a bottomless pit.  Food is also the best way to keep her happy/quiet.

*When she's done eating, she clears her tray by methodically throwing the remaining food on the floor.  It's funny to watch because she does it with such a bored face--she doesn't even watch the food hit the floor.  It's all business.

*First taste of dirt:

It was delicious!!!

 *SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT.  Seth didn't do this until 15 months, so I was amazed to have her sleeping from 7 to 7 every night.  It's made it a lot easier for me to get up with Jon at 5:30 so I can actually get things done before the kids wake up.  Like shower.

*Size three diapers, still somewhere between 6 and 9 month clothes, nursing 3-4 times a day (depending on how many naps she takes).

*First time in a swing:

Needless to say, it was a huge hit.

*She LOVES, LOVES, LOVES the tub.  If she catches me in the shower, she insists on being stripped down and joining me.  She would take a bath every night if I let her (yeah...I don't.  Our kids get baths twice  a week, three times if it's been a dirty day).

*She's gotten herself into more trouble during her one month of crawling than Seth did in his entire crawling career.  Examples:

The toilet paper: a childhood classic.

And just when Seth got to the point when we could leave it accessible...

You can't really tell, but she is entirely inside the cupboard.

As in I could close the door and have a baby-in-the-cupboard.

So much for those glass bottles of vinegar, etc. that I thought were so well-hidden...

*No official words yet, but 'ma ma ma' means "I'm mad/sad/hurt", 'da da!' means "I'm happily surprised", and "buh buh!" means "give me that right now."  Guess which one we hear the most?

*Favorite game right now is putting things in other things, then removing them. Repeat.  She's currently doing this to my purse.

*When she crawls, she almost continuously chants to herself in a whisper.  We'll hear her coming down the hall whispering "ah da da da..."

*She loves practicing walking.  She started using a stool as an prop, so we pulled up her walking toy.  She could spend all day walking with it, but unfortunately I can't spend all day turning her around when she runs into something...

Walking with the stool:

Now a legitimate walking toy: 

"I can do this with my eyes closed!" 

"FORWARD!!!" 

One happy little almost-walker: 

Am I really going to have a one-year-old so soon?  I am totally blown away by how quickly the time has gone.  Baby girl, we love you so.  And now I will leave you with what Jon aptly named "The Pink Nightmare":

She's lucky it's only been cold enough to use this once...

Air & Space Museum

After Aaron's wedding, Kade & Elizabeth stayed for a few days to do some touristing.  We skipped out on the standard DC Mall trip to give our kids a break from driving, but decided to go with them to the National Air & Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center (quite a name).  It's actually located by Dulles Airport instead of by the other Smithsonian Museums on the Mall.  We'd never been and were excited to have a reason to check it out.

It was amazing.  

Seriously. 

If you get a chance to go, TAKE IT.

Jonny & Elizabeth checking out a display:

Kade doing Catherine duty: 

Mommy & Princess: 

The Enola Gay: 

I was kind of surprised at my reaction to seeing this plane.  I've read so much about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I still haven't quite reconciled things for myself.  So to see this tangible link to all that was kind of unnerving in a way.  Like something from a work of fiction that suddenly shows up in reality.

Seth seeing all the 'aiye-planes': 

Catherine could care less about the planes: 

And now for my favorite part: 

For a girl who spent most of her life wanting to be an astronaut, this place was like a candy store.  

I could have spent the entire time just in this section.

The shuttle was ENORMOUS.  

I guess I expected it to be a jumbo-sized jumbo-jet, but this thing was just monstrous. 

(notice how tiny the people underneath are)

This was my favorite display:

The decontamination chamber they put the Apollo 11 astronauts in after they returned from the moon.

You know, in case they had any extraterrestrial viruses.

I read about this in Rocket Men, and was thrilled to see it here.

(For those of us who grew up in a time when sending men to the moon was a given, that book was a great eye-opener about how terrifying and totally unknown spaceflight really was/is.)

Catherine was a trooper.  Who needs to ride when you can stand? 

Unfortunately, the kids were done before we were:  

Catherine's way of saying, "Get me out of here, NOW!"

Seth, relaxing while Kade, Elizabeth & Jonny finished up: 

Seth's favorite airplane:

He spent a long time trying to figure out why the airplane had teeth...

The Blackbird:

This plane is so stealthy that it didn't appear in any of the pictures I took of it at ground level.

That's pretty amazing.

Or my camera is just pretty awful.

And that was the end, because Catherine was 

DONE

DONE

DONE: 

As we were heading to the car, she started pointing and reaching like she does when she wants something.

I couldn't figure out what it was until we got to the van: 

She saw the moon in the sky and wanted us to give it to her.

Cutest thing ever?

I think so.

New Year 2012

With the insanity of the holidays, I didn't get our Christmas letter out until the new year:

As I mentioned in the letter, my main goal this year was to slow things down.  It was a very hard decision to make, but I decided I needed to stop taking cake orders.  I love the work, but it's WORK, and is usually a 2-3 process between baking, decorating, and cleanup.  I found myself ignoring my kids, or worse, being irritated or snappy with them because they were 'interfering.'  Turns out I can't be a good mother and a good cake decorator at the same time.  And so it's something I have to put aside until later, because right now there's nothing I want to be more than I want to be a mother.

I made my other goals very realistic.  With two little ones at home, my time to myself is very limited.  I came up with a 15 minute system that has been working really well for me.  Basically, every day (with flexibility on weekends),  I do the following:

15 minutes of scripture study

15 minutes of reading to Seth (he usually gets more like 30 because I love it so much.  Oh, and I would add Catherine in here, too, but she still prefers to eat the books instead of read them.)

15 minutes of exercise

15 minutes of regular house cleaning

15 minutes of deep cleaning

15 minutes of working on one of my projects

The first two are priorities--they happen EVERY DAY.  And the last one doesn't happen very often, but it's a nice idea.  But just having some idea of what I should accomplish every day--that has been a huge help for me.  Ask Jon--our house has stayed fairly tidy, I feel like I have so much more energy, and I feel like I'm getting 'something' done every day.  

It's funny because I feel like this isn't very much, but I still have to get up at 5:30 with Jon in order to accomplish it all.  Days where we sleep in...things don't happen.  Funny how that works.  

I've promised myself a new pair of jeans if I keep this up until my birthday.  And I will get a pair that I like and that fit how I want them to, no matter how much they cost!  Here's to a good year!