Random Cute Babyness

1. Buddy demanded "mancakes" for breakfast yesterday.  Because, I suppose, they are more manly than waffles.  He let me eat some anyway.

2. Miss Boo can apparently tell time.  With an analog clock.  I don't remember teaching her.  She told me, when I asked how she knew how to do that, "I LEARNED," with elaborate patience.  Mama is sometimes not too quick about these things.

3. The Littlest Sasquatch still has musical opinions.  He likes to sit by me on the floor when I play the piano and bop.  He's in favor of those swingy 1920s hymns in 3/4 time, Eric Clapton, and Milli Vanilli.  I'm pretty sure that if he's going to be a prodigy he should have more refined taste, but alas, he was born to this mama, and I'm not going to play all Mozart all the time.

I'll have some pictures for you soon, of our plane odyssey to the wilds of Nevada.  In the meantime, enjoy your mancakes.

Cheers,

Breanna

Happy Birthday, Little Sasquatch

Have I explained why we call him the Littlest Sasquatch?

It's because he has giant feet, only a half inch smaller than his big brother's.  I predict a height explosion like that of his uncles.

Yes, I am aware the pictures are a full week late.  We've had busy doings round these parts.

You can't really see his cake five o' clock shadow, but it was there.

Luckily we just had cupcakes--Mama's no dummy--and a high tolerance for fingerpainting with them.

Birthday dinner/lunch?  Dinosaur chicken nuggets.  The Littlest Sasquatch's siblings chose for him, since he hasn't totally mastered English yet.

And Fritos.  Chicken nuggets and Fritos.  We are a very healthy household.

At least we're happy.

Oh, and by the way, I cut my hair.  Myself.  I think it turned out okay.

I also gave in and bought industrial floor mats for my entryways, being sick of sweeping up pounds of debris every day that were in no way caught by the teensy mats I used to have.

This is what you need, when you have dead grass, a dog, and three littles who like to come tromping in and out.   They've already saved on sweeping and the kids and dog, for some reason, absolutely love sitting on them.

Here is Buddy doing some "school" - i.e., color and letter recognition.  (That's not plague on his cheek, just a spider bite.  It's almost gone now.)

Here's Miss Boo, trying to show you the picture of a fish with the light behind the paper.

Nothing more exciting has happened *yet*, but in the next couple of weeks things might start happening.  I will keep you all posted.

Cheers,

Breanna

Why so Silent?

1.  Because I have a two-year-old AND a four-year-old, and they both hit their naughty fits at the same time that the Littlest Sasquatch decided he should try to assert his not-quite-one-year-old will.  So we've been dealing with that.

2. And the Husband has been in the clutches of the Cement Fiend.  It's a dusty and short-lived creature but it makes him work 14-hour days sometimes.  Like today.  And last week.  And all weekend.  Wears on a girl.

3. And also I have a hard time writing as well as I ought to when I'm stressed or very tired.  I can write in these circumstances, but when I go back later and read it I realize that I might as well have just given a monkey some vodka and a touch-type phone with aggressive auto-correct and told him to compose the blog post/novel chapter.

4. What little writing energy I have I've been pouring into said novel.

So I'm sorry.  And I do have biggish things in the offing, perhaps, maybe, but nothing I can talk about.  If you're the people that need to know, you already know.  If you're not, sorry, I have to be discreet.

In the meantime, my strategy is simple: do all the laundry every day (really, I'll write a post about it someday, it's much less psychotic than you think), wear out the kids's little brains to keep them out of naughty, run their little butts off for the same purpose, and generally open up a can of fantastic housewifery.

Because if I don't work hard and do well at something and have tangible proof for my efforts, I'll resemble said vodka-swilling monkey.

Cheers,

Breanna

Brave Girl

So we had a doctor's appointment today, which for some reason always just wipes out our whole day.  Although today we had better reason than usual.

Here you see us returned, playing with Buddy's cars which are (of course) stored in the trunk of the trike.  Because, of course, that's where they go.

Worried about a cartoon.

Doing ALL the word puzzles at once.

For some reason we must always refer to these puzzles as "cakes".

I don't know why, except maybe that sometimes you write words like "Happy Birthday" on a cake?

(Wool socks today, it being the only day so far where we dropped below freezing.  Weird, huh?)

"See this cake I made for you mama? It's a bus cake."  Because you know me and buses!  We love each other, me and buses!

"What?"

"I don't want to have my picture taken.  I'm doing cars."

See?

"Not looking at Mama..."

Unfair: I whistled to make him look at me.  Looks a lot like Baba's side of the family in this shot, does he not?

I post the happy kid pics first so you all will know that we're already recovered from Miss Boo's harrowing experience earlier today, where she bravely got five (5!) shots during her four-year-old checkup.  Nobody, to my mind, should have to get more shots than they are old.  (AND one of those nose-sniff flu vaccine things.)

She was so brave.  She couldn't help but cry, though, and so when she was done she said, "I wasn't very brave," and Mama and the nurse said simultaneously "YES YOU WERE!" because she didn't kick, struggle, or try to get away.

Stupid shots.

(Note: I'm not a vaccine resister.  I don't believe they are in any way connected with autism, I think it's a fabulous gift that we live in a time with vaccines so I don't have to anticipate losing a kid to measles, diphtheria, or scarlet fever, I'm glad my kids don't have to get chicken pox (or smallpox, or polio), and I think that people who don't vaccinate their kids but use the religious exemption, when they're not doing it for religious reasons, are dishonest.  We even do flu shots every year, so as to protect any preemies and elderly we come into contact with.  I just wish you could get vaccines without shots.)

Needless to say there were lollipops all around (except for Littleman, much to his chagrin, since he wants everything his siblings have).  Also needless to say when she asked for a milkshake, I heartily granted Miss Boo's request.  And threw in chicken nuggets and fries too.  Heck, I'd have bought her a convertible if she asked for it.

And now we're just dosing with baby ibuprofen and crossing our fingers that with the five (5!) ridiculous shots that the fever won't be too bad.

After all this, it's strange that Mama is the one who's knackered, isn't it?

Cheers,

Breanna

Still Alive

...but boy, have the opening days of 2012 been busy.

Tomorrow perhaps the kids will play in one place long enough that picture-taking would produce more than a blur.

In the meantime, just a note to let you know we're doing well, and to hope you're doing well too.

Cheers,

Breanna

Last Year At This Time...

...I was in Montana.

...I was pregnant and impatient (ergo I was not sipping champagne, feeling retrospective).

...I was cold.

...I didn't have a book published.

...I had never made gumbo, jambalaya, catfish, or BBQ spareribs.

Amazing what can change in a year, and how we always think we can pretty well predict it...until we can't.

It's immensely comforting to think that God is in charge of all of our destinies, whether that is to grow old and accomplish many things, or have our lives snuffed out tonight to awaken in heaven.  Here's to living 2012 in the awareness of His presence.

Cheers,

Breanna

Christmas in Texas

Our first Christmas in Texas has been a roaring success.  It was the first year the kids picked presents for their parents.

They got Daddy a booklight.  And helpfully fell asleep on him while he was opening it.

General mayhem pervaded while we opened presents (the kids got me a scarf).

The day before we made enough Christmas cookies to supply Norway.

And decorated them.  Thoroughly.

By hand.

By both hands.

It was great fun, but Buddy isn't always thrilled to have stuff stuck on his hands, and he gave up before his sister did.

Here he shows you the different colors of sugar we used.

Here you see Miss Boo carefully making a giant pile of all the colors and smearing cookies through it.

Here you see the naked cookies, including the ones that the dog eventually got.

Hardworking Grandma pulling cookies out of the oven.  (We made three varieties.)

More hefty decorating.

Meanwhile, the grownups ate the cookies and played Pathfinder.

We also covered this table with turkey and the trimmings, but we did move the books and things first.

Our beautiful tree...

An actual bough of holly... (and a self-satisfied camel...)

A baby and his Opa...

They look like each other more than you'd think.

A baby who discovered that he knows how to say "cheese".  (Comes out more like "NEEE".)

Every time I pulled the camera out: "NEEEE."

And the wrinkled nose.  "NEEEE!"

"NEEEEE."

"NEEEE."

I couldn't get a normal picture.  He even started saying "NEEE" to the cam lighting in the ceiling because he thought they were camera flashes, I guess.

No, he wasn't saying NEE, but he does make faces nowadays when I pull out the camera.  I don't know why.

NEE!

The last touches on the decorating.

Hope you all had a wonderful, blessed, merry Christmas!

Love you,

Breanna