Where have we been?

Our last post was July 31! I am not sure what I was doing other than chasing the family around and trying to keep my head above water. It was a lot of fun, that's for sure. I am a hardware transition here with computers and cameras, so I will try to get some pictures posted of the happenings of 2009 soon... maybe a "Year in Review" sort of post. Until then, I just wanted to get a couple of things up here so I can share it with family that is looking for updates on the girls.

I finally fixed my scanner. I was motivated to do so because Lana's drawings have just went through some amazing transition. Where she previously doodled and then experimented with drawing simple faces, now she has more more recognizable drawings with many different techniques. In the past, I have sometimes talked her through some drawings... if she asked how to make a turtle then I might tell her to draw a big circle for the body then add a head, tail, and legs. It is also important to note that she did not receive any help on these drawings and was self-directed. I post two of her drawings from this past week.

The first drawing are "bugs" that she drew... some are happy and some are angry. She seems to enjoy drawing and then deciding what it was after the drawing is complete... instead of drawing a specific object.

The next drawing did not scan as well as I liked, but I love the "person" in the drawing. She even has toes!

It is so amazing to see Lana and all her friends develop! I love how they are all so imaginative! It is a blessing to learn from these children.

Typing before writing!

Okay, I should have guessed this would be the case with how common computers are now. I can see definite progression with Lana in terms of reading skills: she loves to make up stories and finish the sentences in her books based on memory. As for writing, I haven't spent much time with her practicing this but I just let her draw all of the time. About a month ago, she was playing one of the computer games she likes and she asked me, "where is the 'n'?" I realized that she was playing on the computer when she asked this so I came to see what she was doing. She was typing her name in the prompt! As I got closer, she found the letter 'n' and then finish her name typing the letter 'a' a few too many times. This week, I saw her doing it again. She plays with the case, too. It's funny because she always starts out with lower case and then wants to make the other letters upper case. I am impressed with her typing her name before she can write it!

Back on Track

Well, I just wanted to comment briefly on my running status. As many of you remember that I started running last July with a goal of running a 5k for the first time ever.
http://rempesretreat.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-challenge-for-amanda.html
As many of you know, I was blessed with pregnancy and had to put that goal on hold. I just wanted to let you all know that I am back! After my c-section on May 20, I receive clearance from the doc to start exercising again. So I started July 6, about a year exactly from when I started running last year! I am happy to say that I was able to accelerate my training program and last night I ran 30 minutes straight without stopping! I believe I had just reached this goal last year when I learned I was pregnant! This is a major accomplishment for me as I was never a good runner (always tried to run too fast and couldn'tbreath properly) even though I've biked and hiked and done aerobics. I am on my way to my first 5k!!!

Natural Finger Paints

Lana wanted to do some finger painting for arts and crafts the other day. When I checked her paints, they were so old and some were dry and some were just near empty. I did a quick internet search to learn how to make our own finger-paints! Here is the recipe and here are the results:
1 1/2 T cornstarch
1 C water
food color
Just mix the cornstarch and water and cook over a stove until thick (on a low temp). Then add food coloring.
We also make our own play-dough for sculpting. All we do is mix up some flour and water with some food coloring. It's real easy to understand what your kid is playing with when you make it yourself. It's also nice not to worry about them ingesting something nasty when they decide to eat a little play-dough!

The Wild Side

We have been going to one of the larger county parks for a long time... long before it was a developed county park. My brother learned to drive in it, we fished in it, Justin used to have BB-gun wars in it, and we used to Mountain Bike there as a couple ... now we take our kids there.

I love this park because it still has a wild side that most of the people don't venture into even though the park is much, much busier these days. We frequently have magical encounters there and the animals and plants are abundant. In addition to so many plants that you all could care less about unless you were geeky about it like me, they have wild walnuts, hickory, pecans, blueberries, blackberries and persimmons. It's just such a neat place with so many environments and several favorite spots that I call my "magic places", where I feel so alive and have had some neat experiences with the nature there.

Anyway, we go hiking there frequently but last week we took Lana out to gather some wild blackberries. It was a ton of fun and she really enjoys it. It will be so neat when Daphne is big enough for us to resume our hiking trips there again.

Shorty

I have not liked any haircut I've ever paid for Lana to have, so being a control freak I decided to try cutting her hair myself... I figured it can't be any worse than what I've been paying others to do to her hair. So, the first time, I was right.... it was no worse than what she was getting from hair-cutters but it was not any better either. It was free. This time I stopped by the beauty supply shop and picked up some texturizing shears so I could try giving her hair some "oomf" with a short cut! I think this worked! Here it is....

Look-A-Likes

It is unbelievable how much Daphne looks like Lana did when she was a baby. The heat is doing a number on Daphne's skin and she has some bad baby acne right now.

Here is a picture of Lana when she was this age, also with the baby acne:

Lana is a great big sister! We've had no problems with her being jealous or acting out in response to having Daphne. Lana occassionally gets in Daphne's toys and tells me she is a baby, but she is super sweet to Daphne and is always ready to help with diapers, pacifiers, blankets, laundry and more.

Beating the Heat!

So, it's been about six weeks since Daphne joined our family and we are having tons of fun. Dadda and Lana have been keeping busy while Mommy and Daphne rested indoors in the first few weeks... you never know what you're going to find when Daddy's are leading playtime. Here are some shots of one evening when I found them outside with the water hose, spraying each other. Lana was repeating, "Hold still! Do you like it? Do you like it, Dadda?"
The very rotten Dadda, however, ran around the garden boxes so Lana would get the water hose all tied up! They were both soaked!

Our Big Girl!!!!

Our big girl is now three and celebrates by being a wonderful big sister! Here are some photos from her birthday and birthday celebration with family...

Welcome to the World, Daphne!

At 8 pounds, 5 ounces and 19 inches, Daphne joined our world on May 20 at 10:08 AM. We will post more pictures of our beautiful girl soon, but here are some of the ones we have from the hospital. She was a scheduled c-section because this pregnancy was already presenting much the way our first did(failing to progress into labor naturally), but we actually were all a little surprised to learn during the operation that she was also breech... so no wonder she wasn't dropping!

Lana was a little cautious at first, but soon was back to normal and it didn't seem that Daphne made her miss a beat from her busy, playful days. Thanks to Nana for taking such good care of Lana while we were in the hospital and for making her feel so comfortable while we were gon

Moving Forward

Hey all. I have no cute pictures or anything this week, but just wanted to send out an update. We have a c-section scheduled for 10:00 AM Wednesday because I have another baby that is apparantly too big to make it through my pelvic cavity, but we are happy to have her one way or another! We should be up for visitors that day and the next... we will make phone calls to let everyone know when Daphne is born.

I have had a major nesting instinct going on. I have knitted 5 diaper covers, made 4 more slings, sewn a bag and hemmed the edges on some large squares of flannel to use as blankets. I am not sleeping well but my mind is overloaded with all these things so I am getting a lot of crafty things done since most require no more effort than sitting. On the flip side... my poor garden is full of weeds and Justin has been working hard to get things ready at work for his time off in addition to his umpiring many evenings each week. We are exhausted already but know that the next couple of months will be tiring.... but we'll be moving forward and can't wait to meet our little girl!!!

Garden Update

Here is our garden progress! We have planted the following: In garden #1, we planted potatoes and onions. This garden will have to be phased out as the trees have grown so much since we've lived here. I don't think we can plant here much longer.

So, we expanded Garden #2 and planted broccoli, sweet potatoes, watermelon, cucumbers, and pole beans.

Then, we added four large garden boxes this year. Thanks to Uncle Travis and Justin for building these while I can't help out at all! Justin also single-handedly moved 3200 pounds of dirt into the boxes and we have more to do! We planted tomatoes over here and will be planting our pepper plants soon! I just have to say... if you love tomatoes the best kind is the heirloom Brandywine. It is so tasty!!!

Spring is here!!!

So much has gone on since the beginning of March and so much more to do!!! Let's talk about outside on this blog. We started all of our spring gardening... including planting onions and potatoes and broccoli. Justin tilled the garden for us and expanded our space and my brother, Travis, came over to help Justin build us some new garden beds which we will be filling with soil this weekend and planting! Lana even has helped with the gardening (and also tasted a dandelion that I washed for her- a little pungent). She's done some heavily supervised pruning, lots of digging, weeding, and planting. In addition to the veggie garden, we've been working on cleaning up flower beds and adding color as well as tons of transplanting of shrubs and trees and plants. I am getting slower and slower as I get closer to the due date for this pregnancy... but I still go out and do a little work most nice days.

So we visited Nana and Pepah Saturday (Easter Eve?) after we decorated eggs. I think Justin had the most fun decorating the eggs. He was like a mad scientist, but Lana was impressed. He went out the next week and bought a couple more egg decorating kits on the after-Easter sales so we could decorate eggs again soon!

Then Sunday we hunted for eggs at our house and at Mammie's. We always find something interesting outside. Last Easter, we had a big, fat toad in our egg hunting path. This year two lizards fell to some sort of torture as Justin caught them and gave them to Lana. Note.... if you squeeze a lizard too hard it will bite you (more like a pinch) as Lana learned the hardway. She now knows better how you hold a lizard behind the head so you don't get bit.

Snow Scam 2009 is NOT a Scam!!!

Every year I refer to the local weather hype as "Snow Scam Year XXXX", but this year it wasn't hype... we actually got some nice powdery snow that came down all day long. Of course, this is so exciting for kids, so we took some time to play in it and enjoy some special treats of cookies and cocoa. Justin even suited up to grill our pork loin in the snow tonight, which is a good thing because we kept having short power outages during dinner preparations!

Lana made her first snowman and a snow-duck... well, she helped a little, mostly with the face and arms. She ate snow for the first time and drank hot cocoa for the first time! Lots of fun first today! Justin enjoyed making some menacing snowballs and was very kind not to use them against us!