Life in the Farm

"I did it!"

I'm not going to lie, Alexis and Sasha are not the easiest duo to be parenting right now.  It seems as if every time I turn my back, there is either major mischief or major arguing/wrestling toys away from each other/high pitched screaming.  Today was just one of those days.  We had a good two hours this afternoon where we were just hanging out at home while I tried to think of what in the world we could do that didn't involve t.v., the computer, or me acting out "pretend baby" with Sasha.  Alexis was in the mood to be crazy and I just could not come up with an age appropriate activity for her that would keep her interest.  So she was digging through our craft drawer.  She had already done coloring and gotten marker all over her hands, the table, the markers themselves, and my sweater.  I was not about to pull out another art project!  I answered the phone and had a super quick conversation with Nate and when I hung up the phone there was a nice blue ink spot on our couch.  Lexi had found a stamp and made our couch a work of art.  I wasn't sure who had done it at first and when I asked, Lexi proudly yelled "I did it!"  And that is the story of the very first three word sentence Alexis has ever said.  Seems very appropriate! 

snow day

In my ongoing quest to keep us all entertained and happy this winter, I came up with a few snow day activities last week.  Although to say I came up with them is a big fat lie, because I am pretty sure that I saw these ideas on facebook and then copied them. 

The day that all the schools were cancelled wasn't a true "snow day" for us because we would have been hanging out at home anyway since Sasha didn't have school that day.  But I was sort of in the spirit of it all, so I acted as though this snow day applied to us.  My list of activities included making homemade pretzels, painting snow, and reading "The Snowy Day".  I got the dough going in the breadmaker early in the morning so we could make the pretzels before lunch.  Here are the girls in their matching aprons ready to make some pretzels...

Aren't those aprons adorable?  A Christmas gift from Aunt Juli!  Alexis actually turned out to be too busy feeding her baby to make pretzels, but Sasha was definitely into it.

It was much harder to shape the dough into pretzels than I thought it would be.  Sasha also insisted that one be shaped into an S, her favorite letter.

They ended up being huge, but quite delicious with a little butter, cinnamon and sugar.  Alexis decided to join us for the eating portion of the activity.

Then Aunt Juli came over and it was on to the snow painting!

And snow angel making

And then painting the snow angel

And then getting a sled ride up and down the street from yours truly

We may have a few more snow activities in our near future, since tomorrow we leave for a long weekend in Boyne with Nate's family!  Hopefully I can do a little blogging there!  :)

Sasha Stories

Here are a few for those who enjoy a good Sasha story...

Yesterday I started talking to Sasha about how February is special because we pay extra attention to learning about and honoring the many black men and women who have made our country and this world great.  I decided to see if she remembered anything about MLK day; here was part of our conversation:

Me:  "Remember the name of the great man who we celebrated a couple weeks ago?" 

Sasha:  blank look

Me:  "Dr...."

Sasha:  "Seuss?"

So glad she is learning so much from me!  :)

And today we had a couple funny moments.  We were playing in Sasha's room before nap time.  I could tell Lexi was getting tired, so I picked her up and carried her down the hall to her room.  She, in typical fashion these days, fought me with every ounce of her being.  She was so mad she had to put down her toys.  Sasha followed behind us with a little bowl Lexi had been playing with and gave it to her.  I explained to Sasha that it was very nice of her to share and want to make Lexi happy, but she would be distracted and not fall asleep if she had a toy in her crib.  Lexi handed it back to Sasha, I layed Lexi down and thought all was well because there was immediate silence in her room.  About 20 minutes later I hear Lexi wide awake calling for me.  I go in to check on her and there she is, wide awake and happily playing with the bowl.  Sasha had smuggled it in the crib when I wasn't looking!  Now that they are working together, I really need to watch out!  :)

Nate worked late tonight so it was just us girls until about 7:30pm.  Around 6:00pm, Lexi grabbed my hand, led me upstairs into the bathroom, said "bath" and tried to turn on the water.  I decided to take the hint and give the girls a bath even though it was a little early.  Lexi dove right in, but Sasha refused.  This is something she does on a regular basis, then once she sees Lexi having fun, she jumps right in, and stays in long after Lexi has gotten out.   I told her she could take a bath or a shower, but she was going to get clean before bed.  She tried to stall and started to open up my Burt's Bees foot moisturizer.  I told her that I would be happy to give her a little pedicure after her bath or shower, and I really thought I had her sold.  She left the bathroom and I thought she was just going to get a toy or something for the bathtub.  (Quite frequently a doll gets a bath the same time she does).  She came back with her face covered about an inch thick in the foot cream!  It was a greasy, peppermint smelling mess.  She was laughing at first, but she had it in her eyes and it must have started to burn.  That sure took the fun out of it for her and definitely was a logical consequence!  She can be such a sneaky little thing though.  Gotta love that girl!

dedication

Today Nate and I finally crossed something important off our "parenting Alexis" list.  She was dedicated in our church!   This has been many months in the making since Nate is usually busy working on Sundays and our chances to attend a service together, on a day they are doing a dedication are slim.  It was especially fun because Lexi's little friend Malia was dedicated today too. 

When Sasha was around 2 years old we started attending Citadel.  It was definitely a leap of faith because we didn't know anyone there and it was completely unfamilar to us.  But Nate and I really wanted to find a church that was more reflective of our girls and their culture of origin and we had heard awesome things about Citadel.  What we heard were definitely not exaggerations.  Pastor Carey is amazing and the community there is so welcoming.  Two years later we have made great friends and Nate and I both agree that it was the right move for our family.  (Our previous church is a great one too though, and we had Sasha dedicated there.  Please just look at the cute picture of Sasha and not the not-so-cute picture of me!)

As always, I tried to get some pictures.  You can see below how completely thrilled Alexis was to do this. 

Sasha tackling Alexis trying to get her to pose on our couch before we left.

This is what my children look like at 2:30 in the afternoon when they have not yet taken a nap. 

I also have non-happy (of the girls) pictures with our extended family and of Alexis and Malia, but I will spare you.  Sadly, none of them convey the cuteness that was Alexis most of the day.  Thank goodness it is the experience and meaning that are important, not a perfect picture!

20 sweet months

Alexis has been so precious lately that I feel like I need to get it documented.  I don't have an exact count of all the words she says, but her favorite is definitely "Sasha."  She absolutely adores Sasha.  On school days, if we are at home and it is time to get Sasha, all I have to do is say the word and Alexis runs to get her shoes on and get in the car.  She repeats pretty much every word you say and is into naming family members now.  I think her voice is the cutest when she says "Allie," there is something about the L sound! 

We have had a lot of sickness in this house lately and so Lexi is really into getting a tissue and blowing it with her mouth.  She is pretty sure that is how you do it!  :)  She is also very into brushing her teeth with Sasha.  All we have to do walk by the bathroom after breakfast and she remembers she gets to do this and she yells "tee!  tee!" 

Her favorite snack right now is graham crackers.  She knows where they are kept in the kitchen and will often stand right by that cupboard, reach up and request "cacko!"  She is also into "cookie!"  Another favorite activity is to hand something to someone and say "thank you!"  I love seeing how her little mind puts these words into practice!  :)  She also copies Sasha quite a bit.  She loves to get a cup and try to fill it with water at our refrigerator like Sasha does.  Lots of spilling follows, but for some reason I keep allowing it.  It's just water, right?  That reminds me of last week when we had a tea party with real water and cup after cup was spilled.  I just let it go though, because both girls were having so much fun.

On a not so great note, Alexis fell down our stairs last week.  From the  top to the bottom. Thankfully she was perfectly fine within a couple  minutes of the fall but it gave us a huge scare.  All in all, Lexi is such a joy.  We get the occaisonal tantrum and she has had to take a handful of time outs, but she is so sweet and still a cuddler.  I love watching her grow up!

 

Super Sasha Stops Napping

It has happened.  No denying it anymore.  Sasha is now officially nap-free.  Thinking back to the many posts I have written, I bet most of them at least have the word "nap" in them, because I am one nap-loving Mom.   But it was time to let this one go.  For the past couple weeks, every now and then I would go through the whole pre-nap routine with Sasha and she would get into bed as though she had every intention of falling asleep, yet 20 minutes after I left her room I would hear, in a bright and chirpy voice "Can I come out yet?"  I guess that was my first clue that she was really moving to the no nap zone!   And now we are on day six (consecutively) of no napping.  It has taken a little mental adjustment for me, but I have come to accept it that she just doesn't need it anymore, and all in all, it has been a pretty smooth transition.  She has been falling asleep so much easier at bedtime, which is 7:30pm now, and has been sleeping in later too.  I don't know if this is just Christmas fatigue, but she has been sleeping in until between 8 and 9 lately, which has been glorious.  We are still working out the kinks of "quiet time" in her room though.  We are once again putting to use the light with a timer and setting it to turn on after one hour.  Yesterday she played happily in her room and even rested quietly until the light came on, when she ran out of her room with glee.  Today she whined and called me constantly asking when the light was going to come on.  So we aren't quite there yet!  I am oddly proud that I got almost four years of napping out of Sasha, but I am ready for her to keep growing up I suppose.  But I am still counting on many, many, many more naps for Alexis!  :)

a bit of a mislead...

It was brought to my attention by a couple of people that the title of my last post "expanding family" seemed to initially imply that we had an announcement that we were indeed expanding our family in some way.  I think it really shows just how far off the idea of another kid in this family is for me when the thought that the title might mean something different for most people reading it never even occurred to me!  To me, the idea of expanding family was more about how in our minds and in Sasha's mind the idea of family is always evolving and cannot be contained in a tidy, little box.  But I can now see that most people would immediately think something different. 

So here is the deal on that:  not any time soon.  It seems that the older Alexis gets, the harder it gets.  She is working so hard to become her own little person that now she doesn't just go with my flow, she wants to create her own.  And we all know Sasha has been creating her very own flow for quite some time!  It seems like every day is a series of little choices that I have to make about how to be a mom to them, and be a wife and daughter and sister and friend and how to do my (paid) job and generally take care of everything that needs to be taken care of.  And there are many moments where I feel like I make the wrong choices and things go haywire.  And I lose my patience and I get tired and crabby and feel like I'm terrible at this and the thought occurs to me "How could I ever add a third to this craziness?  I can't even do two well!"   Because at least once every day I think that I just might not have the stamina.  And my main focus right now is doing a good job taking care of the specialness that is Sasha and Alexis and I think that would suffer if I were to add in the specialness of a new child.  So that is why there are no immediate plans to add more.  BUT...Nate and I always wanted a big brood and so we do have some fuzzy, in the future when we are ready plans to add some kids.  As for now though, unless a baby lands on my doorstep, we are staying a family of four.

fun at home

I feel like we have been spending a little more time at home lately and I have been trying out some new activities with the girls to keep us happy and busy.  I highly recommend the one I tried the other day.  It was about 4:00pm and both girls were getting cranky and bored.  I set them each on a stool at our kitchen counter, gave them a baking sheet, and put some shaving cream on it.  They played with messy, goopy (Sasha called it "chubby") shaving cream to their heart's content.  Sasha even practiced writing her letters on the baking sheet.  It started off quite civilized, but as most things do with little kids when you let them go on for a while, they got a little wild. 

This was the relatively calm stage.  Of course Alexis had to taste the shaving cream...gotta expect that with an 18 month old!

Getting wilder...

And now I have lost complete control...

Only do this activity if you are planning on bathing them washing their hair immediately after!  Lexi was ready for a new 'do, although I was hoping to keep Sasha's braids in one more day.  That obviously didn't happen!  It was so much fun though...I know this activity will be repeated a few more times this winter!

a good day

The visit is over, Alexis is fast asleep for the night.  Sasha, not quite, but hopefully she will be soon! (Although sleep is now being pushed back due to a book related injury in bed).  We had a great time seeing J and her fam again.  Lexi turned on the charm, so they got to see her in all her extreme cuteness.  She was saying tons of words and even said J's name.  But they also got to see a nice little tantrum as well when Lexi didn't get something she wanted (to climb the stairs).  I can't even imagine what the experience must be like for Lexi's first family to see her...it's got to be a combination of so many feelings like joy, sadness, loss, pride, and so much more. 

For me, I had a couple questions I wanted to ask them, so it was nice to be able to do it in person.  We talked about what to have the girls call them and you know we talked about hair!  It was a huge relief when I asked how they would do Lexi's hair if she was with them and they said "Just like that!"  Phew.  I am a huge proponent of openness and honesty, but it's always a little nervewracking to live out what you preach!  I decided against asking J if I could put a picture up here, so instead here is Lexi waiting for their car to drive up...

She gave them a big wave and a "Hi!" as they drove up.  I've said this over and over, but we are so lucky to have the type of adoption we do.  Really, we couldn't ask for much more.  Our lives have been enriched in so many ways, and I think it will make things easier for Alexis in the long run too.  How lucky are we that we can know that Alexis looks just like her first mom (and dad), and that they have so many of the same traits?  Alexis will be able to see herself reflected back to her.  She will be able to get answers, even if they aren't easy ones.  Those are just a few of the reasons that Nate and I are so grateful.   Alexis, you are loved more than you will ever know.

picture day!

Yesterday was picture day at Sasha's school.  It was a good thing one of the other parents reminded me on Tuesday, because I totally would have forgotten.  I'm not used to all of these school related responsibilities!  Anyway, I thought it might be a good idea to get a picture of her before school, because who knows what this picture will look like!  :)

And in Lexi news...she pooped on the potty again!  Yesterday I had just changed her diaper when she was showing signs she needed to go.  I did not want to waste a diaper, so I stripped her down and put her on the toilet and she went.  Such a brilliant child, that girl.

We are super excited that J and her fam are coming over tomorrow for a visit.  It has been WAY too long since we have seen them; the last time was in May for Lexi's birthday.  We can't wait to show off all of Lexi's new tricks and words.  Mabye I'll ask if I can post a picture of Lex and J together so you can all see how much they look alike.  So gorgeous!