Happy Christmas from the Pacific Northwest!

Waiting to open presents on Christmas morning.

Reading the book Grandma Rose wrote for Silvie about the Little Girl Who Loved Shoes.

Helping Papa build the IKEA play kitchen.

We had a mostly happy (except for a few toddler temper tantrums) and relaxing Christmas day at home this year.  Here are a few of our favorite photos but there are more on Flickr for the grandparents and the curious.

Love across the miles,

Deb, Nathan and Silvie

Calendar Girl, 11 Months

Dear Silvie–

At 11 months you are  a perpetual motion machine, and, unfortunately, a perpetual snot machine.  It seems you (and I) have caught more than your share of colds this winter.  But then, it could be that you’ve been teething too and we mistook your snarliness for a cold.  The other day I noticed that you had some molars that I’d never seen before and I don’t know when they worked their way out.

You are starting to talk a bit more.  You say “hi” and “bye” and wave, sometimes at random strangers.  You say “baba” (papa) and “nana” (banana).  You can sign “more” and “milk” emphatically.  You jabber a lot and I am sure more words will start showing up in the midst of the jabber.  You love the dogs and, although you can’t say “Abraham” and “Keegan”, you definitely know their names.  You have a special laugh “huhh” whenever you see one of the dogs.  I’m not sure if it is your version of a bark or if it is just your happy-dog-sound.

It’s been a busy month with your papa back to work.  You transitioned going to the babysitter flawlessly.  I credit that to a wonderful sitter and to the fact that you have gone every Wednesday since you were 6 months old so you were already very comfortable there.  I think it’s good for you to have other kids to play with during the day and I think you’ve already picked up a few skills from watching the older two.

One challenge beside your constant colds has been your diet.  You are starting to faze out your bottles and are down to basically a morning and an evening bottle.  However, we have not done a good job getting you to eat a balanced diet the rest of the day.  So far you subsist primarily on a diet of avocados, cheerios, yogurt, and bananas.  You haven’t met a carb you didn’t like.  Must take after your mama.  But you’re really not into vegetables.  We’ll keep trying and if any readers have any tips, please leave them in the comments.

We’re excited that the weather has been nice and sunny and you’re learning how to play outside.  When we do yard work, we usually let the chickens out to peck around in the beds and eat bugs and plants.  You are fascinated by them and spend a lot of time walking and crawling toward them.  I’m surprised how close they let you come to them, never close enough to touch but within inches before they move away.  We’ve had to catch you a few times just as you were about to climb into the chicken run.  Yuck.

I’ve always loved seeing the world through the eyes of a child, and I’m having fun rediscovering it through your eyes yet again.

Love,

Mama

An Update

Alas, I realize this blog has been deathly silent these last few weeks.  We are still here though.  It’s rainy and cold and we’ve had our share of sniffles already, but here’s a little bit about what we’ve been up to.

Nate:  At home with Silvie every day except Wednesdays when she goes to the sitter.  He’s doing a fabulous job taking care of her and playing all sorts of games with her.  When she sleeps he showers, does dishes, cooks, plans our kitchen remodel (for “some day”) and brews hard cider.  Gotta love a multi-talented man!

Deb:  Work, work, work.  I leave home before daylight in the morning and get home just as it’s getting dark again.  I’m carving out time here and there to be crafty and to blog.  You can look over at Bee’s Nest if you’d like to see some of my creative endeavors.  I’ve got the evening shift with Silvie and we have fun bathing and reading books together before she goes to bed every night.

Silvie:  Favorite toys at the moment are her empty formula cans that she likes to roll around on the floor or shove in front of her as she crawls from room to room.  She also likes pushing her high chair or the dining room chairs around like very tall, slow-moving walkers.  Her favorite noise is the noise of banging on the laptop keyboard, which gets her lots of parental attention and fast!   She has real toys, people.  Honest.  She just likes all the other household objects better.

Abraham and Keegan:  Are feeling sorely neglected these days since a small child has stolen all the attention around here.  But the payoff is they get to clean up the floor under the highchair after every meal.  They must lie down in the living room and wait until we are finished eating before they are allowed to come in and clean up the floor.  Keegan waits rather patiently although sometimes there is drool in the corner of her mouth.  Abraham tries to quietly sneak into the dining room until one of us notices and sends him scampering back to the living room.  It’s a tough life.

That’s a little picture of our lives these days.  Stay warm and safe out there!

Four Months

Dear Silvie–

Oh, bug!  You are so fun to watch as you grow your own opinions about the world.  You’ve decided that you LOVE the dogs.  Whenever you hear one of them walk into the room you crane your neck until you see it and then you break into  your toothless grin and chortle.  Sometimes you coo and talk to them.  Keegan’s really not that into you.  Mostly she acts as if you don’t exist, but you think she is so funny–especially when she plays fetch with Papa.

Abraham likes you because your face tastes like spoiled milk and slobber…two of his favorite flavors.  He licks you vigorously several times a day.  When you see him coming you get the biggest grin on your face and close your eyes as you prepare for the assault.  You never seem scared or upset at him for licking you.   In return, he lets you “pet” him and poke and prod him until he gets sick of it and moves away.  Fortunately, he’s been gentle with you so far and he’ll always be able to get away from you.

Berry Sweet

You have recently decided that lying down is no longer for you.  You insist that you should be upright at all times.  We have all sorts of ways to accomplish this and still try to get some work done around you.  You have a swing, a bumbo chair, a boppy pillow, an ergo baby carrier, and two strollers.  When we do need to lay you down, you do “crunches”.  Seriously.  You lift your head and shoulders off the ground and grunt.  You’ve got some abs for a baby!  You can hold your crunches for 30 seconds or more.  You clearly will be so much happier when you can sit up on your own.

Crunches

Overall you have maintained a pleasant personality.  You do cry (even though our friends claim you don’t), but your cries are nearly always directly related to a need.  Once your need has been met you go back to your sweet self.  You love meeting people, especially all the grandmas and grandpas that make a fuss over you at the grocery store and the post office (in our unscientific poll, people over 50 are most likely to make googly eyes at babies).  There are hints that some rockier times may be ahead.  You’ve already expressed a little separation anxiety a few times when being separated from me.   And you’ve commenced with some heavy-duty drooling and chomping that indicate that teething is just around the corner.  But for right now, we’ll just enjoy you, sweetie bug.

Love,

Your mama

P.S. Can I have my boobs back soon, please?

Saturday on the Urban Farm

Nate had Poop Duty today:
Chicken Poop + Dog Poop + Baby Poop = The Trifecta

When the Sun Shines…

The other weekend it was absolutely gorgeous here…sunny and in the 70s.  The gardening bug bit bigtime.  Nate “tilled” our three raised beds and added some composted chicken poop.  Our beds are 3 x 5 feet and about 8 inches deep.  I try to follow some of the Square-Foot Gardening tips, but I am by no means a good vegetable gardener.  I’m grateful that I don’t have to count on our garden to supply our food needs.  But it is nice when we can supplement our diet with truly locally-grown food.

I planted one bed full with radishes, carrots, mesclun mix, and green beans.   The radishes and mesclun (lettuces) sprouted up within a week.  On Easter weekend I planted another of the beds with basil, cilantro, dill (I LOVE fresh herbs) and two kinds of chard.  We could still get a killing frost but I’m counting against it.  Even if it did frost the first bed would probably be ok and I have enough seeds to replant the second bed if I had to.  I’ll wait a little longer before planting the last raised bed with more “salad”–lettuces, radishes, carrots, etc.  And maybe I’ll try my hand at growing some brussel sprouts this year.

Nate’s just cleared another area in the side yard where I’ll put some tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.  I’ll wait another couple of weeks until frost danger is truly over and then I’ll buy the largest starts I can find of these plants at the nursery.  I only want 2 or 3 plants each so it doesn’t seem worth it to try to start them from seed.

While Nate and I gardened, Silvie obliged by sleeping in her car seat/seed holder (see post below).  Abe found a place in the sun where he is nearly the same color as the gravel…he likes camouflage like that.  Keegan has figured out how to roll her ball under the new gate so that it lands out in the garden area.  Then she whines until one of us throws the ball back into the backyard.  Repeat three hundred and eighty-five times.  That dog truly has obsessive compulsive disorder.

Floor Time Video for Grandma

P1040741 uploaded by ndmiller

In the last week, Silvie’s really increased in alertness.  After she eats and gets her diaper changed, she usually has about 30 minutes of wide-eyed happy time (before she descends into unhappy fighting-sleep time).  She wants to be paid attention to, and she wants to be able to flap her arms and bicycle her legs (much to her papa’s enjoyment as he’s sure she’s building some good muscles for future cycling fame).  She’s started to make more noises too, both happy little coos and unhappy little yelps.

We put her on her blanket for some floor time.  This makes her a prime target for Abraham, who believes that anything placed on the floor is put there for his express enjoyment.  We’ve been allowing him to sniff her and even sneak in a few licks but we’re really on his case if he becomes “aggressively friendly” as he’s known to do.  As our friend Jason noted, for Silvie to be licked by Abraham is akin to you or I being licked by a Clydesdale.

There’s another video over here on Flickr if one is just not enough for ya.  Oh, and please pardon the poor picture quality. These short videos are shot with our handy point-n-shoot Panasonic.

major storm hits portland

so far its been a rainy and a little windy.

we did find some damage when we came home from church today..

it was quite a mess

we’re not sure how it happened…

maybe we can ask the dogs.

couchfest 2007 – pdx edition

couchfest 2007 II

it’s quiet again around the house……. too quiet

couchfest 2007 is over, the dust has settled and the dogs are moping…

pictures are here…

 

 

Foolin’ Around in the Yard

It’s a slow news week in the Miller household so we’ll just talk about plants.

Last year we planted a few shrubs around our back yard. They were pretty scraggily looking last year, but I can already tell they’re going to be fabulous this year. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Cotinus Coggygria, or purple smokebush, has the most amazing red leaves and it looks great for at least three seasons. I planted it right outside our bedroom window and hope it will eventually get large enough that it will help shade our bedroom on summer evenings. It has great color all summer long and in the fall it gets these crazy, fluffy, pinkish flowers that are the “smoke”. See that little golden barberry bush underneith it? I don’t particularly like barberry bushes because they are thorny and inhospitable plants. But. The dogs kept trampling around the baby smokebush last year and breaking off its tender limbs, so I planted the barberries around it, and now the dogs give it a little wider berth.

Another favorite in spring time is the spirea “Gold Flame”. I love it’s bright chartreuse color with the red new leaves in center. I don’t like it nearly as well in the summer when it turns a sort of boring green color and gets pink flowers (blech) but it redeems itself by turning bronzy-red again in the fall.

Unrelated Cautionary Tale:

You can take your German Shorthaired Pointer for a very long bicycle ride and she will run hard beside you the entire way. Just be warned that when she wears off the pads of her feet, she will not stop. And then you will feel like a Bad Dog Owner the next day as she limps around the house on her ragged little paws.

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