More germs

It's been a sniffly month around here. We had maybe a day between the last wave of colds and the latest one. I kept Molly home from school all last week because she was so congested and exhausted. Kate had a fever for an entire day last week and couldn't be set down. At this point I've kind of forgotten what it's like to be healthy, which actually helps.

We're all on the mend now, though. Molly was back in school this week. Kate has been sleeping more like three hours between night wakings instead of two or less. Things are moving in the right direction, right? I was really hoping to work on getting her to sleep through the night, now that the holidays are over, but she's been non-stop sick. Blaaahhhh!

So I guess that's why I don't have a lot of photos to show. The ones I do have are either of the blur left behind of Molly running away (she's in one of those "don't take a picture of me" phases) or of Kate with a glistening upper lip. Ick. This is all I have that's presentable,

Kate really, really likes the dishwasher (just like her big sister did). If I'm in a good mood, sometimes I grant her ultimate wish and let her climb up on the door. Baby's clean!

Molly with silly braids.

We're going through yet another round of basement cleaning, which means discovering all sorts of treasures. This was the flute I got in 4th grade. Molly and Kate are both having a great time with it.

Kate is very quickly growing into a little person. She's doing more things now where she tries to engage you in some sort of game or activity. She likes to cover her face with a towel and then pull it down (pee-a-boo), hand you something and then try to pull it back (tug-of-war) or imitate sounds and gestures. It's fun to see Molly enjoying Kate's new playfulness. They have a good time together (when they're not making each other cry, of course). Uh, oh. I hear Kate crying. She hasn't been in bed for even an hour. Not a good sign. Gotta go.

OK, I'm back. Just wanted to add this.

Kate's favorite toy today was this paper towel tube. First she was dropping a wooden clothes pin through it. Then this marker. The rest of the day every so often we would find her dropping something in and lifting the tube to figure out where it would end up. Of course, she doesn't actually get the marker in in this video but it's the closest I got.

Family portraits

We couldn't post these before Christmas because we didn't want to give away the surprise. We did get family portraits done, though. They're all here. Quick sample...

Baby's first beer

I think I've mentioned before that Kate is a funny eater. Some days she devours everything in front of her. Some days she rejects everything, even things she loved before. Lately she's been eating not much but bread. Give her anything else, she throws it on the floor. She'll eat an entire slice of bread, broken into little bits, in one sitting. Last night at dinner she ate a bunch of bread then reached for my food, which happened to be this recipe for Ale, Cheddar and Cauliflower Soup. It's pureed so I figured, why not? She loved it! It's not exactly mild flavored, either. Now we wait three days before introducing a new food to make sure she's not allergic to Budweiser (which work fine in the recipe, by the way). The alcohol cooks off, right? I swear it wasn't an attempt to get her to sleep through the night.

Not much else is going on. Molly is back to school and having a good time. Kate has a taste for danger and is going through a power outlet phase. She's also learned to climb, as we discovered the day we found her standing at the top of Molly's step stool and crawling into the second shelf on Molly's bookcase.

Since Christmas, Molly has more ways than ever before to be matchy with Kate.

This is a card she made for me the other day. I think it's supposed to be a thank you note for me to send to somebody else, but she says the picture at the top is me holding Kate and Molly next to us.

It seems everything else on my camera is unrelated to children. Here's our family heirloom Christmas cactus blooming.

And here are my newest hobbies ...

weaving on my new Cricket loom

and making wire jewelry with pliers and wire scavanged from the basement.

Speaking of hobbies, the girls are in bed. What am I doing here? Off to craft!

Happy New Year!!!

I think we may have finally recovered from the holidays enough to do a blog post. :)


Girls playing at Grandma's house.

Christmas Eve at Oma and Grandpa's.

Christmas morning at Grandma's.

More Christmas....

We got home Monday night (very smooth drives both ways) and crashed for the week. I did a few errands in the evenings after the kids were asleep so they wouldn't have to leave the house at all. We made it until Friday morning before I finally took them out for a quick grocery trip. It's good to be home.

Birthday party

Molly's birthday party was this afternoon. It's the first formal birthday party she's ever had and it went great. Molly wisely chose to invite only a few good friends from the neighborhood, no new friends from school or anything, so the kids jumped right into playing together as if it was any ordinary afternoon ... well, an ordinary afternoon spiked with juice boxes and cupcakes.

Speaking of cupcakes, I was inspired by this fantastic blog post I read a while ago to stop going to all the trouble to make Molly's birthday cupcakes (and half-birthday cupcakes) from scratch and just buy them. I was all set to have a grocery store whip up the pink batter for us, but then I called the bakery and found out that they don't actually whip up batter and hence can't make a custom batch of pink for Molly. Their cupcakes come ready-made frozen and they just frost them. Eeeeeww. At that point I didn't feel like shopping around small bakeries to find one that actually bakes and then deal with the hassle of picking them up, etc. So yet again, I baked my own.

This time around I found a recipe for white cake (not yellow, which we learned last year turns orange rather than pink when red food coloring is added) and one that didn't involve lengthy whipping of egg whites and other complicated steps (learned that lesson on the half-birthday).

Pretty easy, pretty tasty and just fine for blowing out candles.

The birthday guests ...

Boxes

Still among the best toys...

Birthday morning

I gave Molly a hug last night and told her it was her last night as a 3-year-old and she told me she didn't want to turn 4. Silly kid. Actually, she has told me several times that she wants to turn 6 and then stay there forever. :)

Anyway, this morning she was perfectly happy to open her gifts as a 4-year-old.

We had a special breakfast of waffles and hot cocoa. I don't think Molly had much of the cocoa but her horse was into it.

Cool window markers!