Baby Signs

We started basic baby sign language with Alanna a couple of months ago, and have just seen her first signs in the last couple of days. Right now she only has two clear ones: "all done" and "more" relating to mealtimes. She also seems to be on the verge of waving, as she does a sort of backhand salute to Daddy as he heads off to work. And she perhaps is also blowing kisses by putting her palm up to her mouth and looking darn cute (we're not sure if she's actually doing this one since she's not predictable yet). I'm pretty excited! We signed with Rhys, too, and it was a wonderful tool to have for communication. I don't remember how many signs Rhys used, but I learned over 50 in part because I'm interested in ASL anyway. If you wanted to have a conversation in signs about the farm or animals or our daily baby schedule, I could tell you all about it!  Right now, I keep an ASL video dictionary bookmarked so I can look up new signs as we need them.

Here is Alanna demonstrating that she is all done with her yogurt lunch!

(Almost) Walking Tall

 

Alanna is quite the cruiser. Here she's taking the push-toy for a walk, but she'll walk anything that will move across the floor– the baby keyboard, the laundry basket, the dining room chairs. Stuff is spread far and wide throughout the dining room and living room because once she runs into something, she simply plops down on the floor, crawls over to something else to push, and is on her way again. 

And yes, those are the snazziest pink fuzzy legwarmers you've ever seen..... 

Weekend in Pagosa Springs

We spent a couple of days in Pagosa Springs, CO and had a wonderful time. It was wintry and our cabin was toasty. We walked around town and ate ice cream cones, just because Daddy and Rhys are suckers for ice cream, no matter the weather. We also went for a spectacular cross-countyski using a new-used sled we picked up from my Uncle Paul (thank you!!) after having breakfast with him. The snow was thick and fluffy, and it continued to snow gently on us as we skiied. We were the only ones on the trail, too. It was absolutely lovely.

Our skiing odyssey:

 

.....Rhys evidently thinks the sled is as much fun as we do..... 

  

.....Daddy hauls Rhys behind him (Rhys giggled while 

dragging his mittened hand through the snow)..... 

 

.....The wintry trail ahead of us.....

 

.....Rhys was pretty cozy in the sled as he napped.....

.....My self-portrait of Alanna and me.....

.....Scoping the scene– we had two asleep kids so we 

wanted to go farther than originally planned. 

We decided to summit the (small) hill in front of Aaron.....

.....Alanna and I gear up. Alanna snored pretty loudly the whole time.....

.....Descending the (small) summit.....

Hello out there!

It was recently brought to my attention that perhaps people are reading this blog. I mean, I know grandmas and grandpas read it, and I make my husband read it, but apparently there are other friends and family reading it to. I had no idea! I thought I was doing this mostly for the grandparents and for the kids, once I figure out how to publish this as a book so they can look through it when they're older. Since I'm thinking a few more people are looking at it, I've also started trying to spiff up the blog (I added a list of books I'm reading- then I got tired of spending too much time on the computer only thinking about the books I'm reading instead of reading them). So, if you ever feel like it, leave a comment or email me so I know you're out there. (Thank you Katie!)

Booger Glue

It's some of the stickiest in nature!

Awakening My Inner Hippie

Aaron has told me title of this post should actually be "Reawakening My Inner Hippie." I've suppressed this particular aspect of my persona for a few years– I think because of the intervention of "modern western" medicine in Rhys's premature birth (which brings up so many emotions I really can't express them in an online blog). I'm now moving back to my mostly vegetarian, shampoo-is-merely-a-money-making-conspiracy, aromatherapy anyone?, mmmmmm-patchouli-smells-yummy self. So: I prefer eating vegetarian, although I've found my son is a willing and ready carnivore; yup, I'm not using shampoo at the moment (with mixed results, but it bears more study– I'm using baking soda and a vinegar rinse, if you're interested); with the colds going around the house we've been using steamy tea tree essential oil for treatment of stuffy noses and coughs; and, well, I do love the smell of patchouli. Above is my homemade beeswax-olive oil-honey lip balm and the horehound lozenges (also for treatment of colds) I made yesterday. Our cleaning supplies have mostly consisted of vinegar and baking soda for a while, but now they're pretty much exclusively those two ingredients, with the addition of a general purpose cleaner I got from a friend (below). I'm even cutting out high fructose corn syrup (which isn't too difficult since we don't consume much of that anyway) and already make my own laundry detergent. I'll be donning flip-flops as the weather gets warmer, and I'm growing my hair out long again. I don't plan to go bra-less, encourage dreadlocks, or smoke pot. Does that make me only a hippie wanna be?

Oh, and, I'm planning to start making my own granola....


.....
Here is the all-purpose cleaner recipe:

2 TB salt
1/2 cup vinegar
*60 drops orange essential oil
*30 drops lemon essential oil
*30 drops grapefruit essential oil
water
2 TB eco-friendly dish soap

Start with an empty quart-size spray bottle. Add 1 cup of warm tap water. Use a funnel to add salt. Swish the water until the salt dissolves. Use funnel to add vinegar. Remove funnel and carefully add essential oil. Fill bottle with water to one inch from the top. Finally, add dish soap. Replace sprayer and shake gently.

*You can use ~120 drops of whatever oil you have or like. I (my friend) use a combo of bergamot and lavender because they are inexpensive and I like the smell. I (Britton) used lavender and tea tree oil.

Bath Together

 

One of both of the kids' favorite things right now is taking a bath together. Yesterday afternoon I asked Rhys if he wanted to take a bath with Alanna, and before you could say, "Splash in the Bath!" Rhys was naked and in the tub, turning on the water. Alanna immediately crawled into the bathroom after him to pull up on the tub.  If she were taller, she would have climbed in with him, clothes and all– her little legs were trying to get purchase on the tub side so she could climb up to get in the tub. They splash and laugh and have a great time! In fact, at Rhys told me he and Alanna were going to take another bath "at nighttime," shortly after getting out of this afternoon bath.