Grrrrr I don't know what changed about the picture layout here, I can't seem to get it the way I used to!!! Argh! Oh well... here are some recent pictures- Emma Kate hanging out at the gymnastics class, eating mommy's made-from-scratch pumpkin ravioli (yummy!! Yes, that is a stuffed mouth, not a look of disgust on Emma Kate's face...), more half-naked activities (vacuuming this time), Gretta and all her many expressions, Emma Kate picking out a new cow, balancing a teether on her head, and helping Daddy put new plates on the Volvo- the volvo was a gift to us from Grandpa Saz and Abuelita, to replace the Camry that was totaled in the accident. It is a wonderful car and an amazing gift! Greg finally got his wish for "PF" plates- Professional Firefighter... and then of course more *censored* nakey shots of the baby. She just enjoys nakey time so much, and those little chubby parts are too cute to keep covered all the time- before we know it she will be all grown up, we have to enjoy it while we can!! Gretta is so funny when she is naked, she is especially ticklish on her sides, and she will curve her body so tight it changes where all the rolls are each time you do it... :) She continues getting stronger and stronger with her sitting and can go a little while before tips to one side or the other, and she is so incredibly mobile on the floor now- she turns herself around, rolls over and over, and is across the room before you know it! She has started really tucking her knees up under herself tightly too, both when she is playing on the floor as well as when she is sleeping- we call it "turtling" and it reminds us of when Emma Kate used to do it too! Too cute...

Today is Earth Day 2011 and marks the start of our attempt to go without electric lights for the summer, or however long we are able to manage it... :) We got our beautiful and amazingly fragrant beeswax candles yesterday, and today I covered the light switches in the house with little pieces of cloth to remind us not to just grab for them when we go into a room... It is so cozy and relaxing having the candles flickering... We also had a visit from a guy who does green energy options to see what is involved in doing some solar/wind power for the house. It's all very interesting and we just wish there was more support for these means through the government so that everyone could use them- WHY NOT?!?!?! Hopefully soon... :)

Off to a rough start

Emma Kate had a rough night last night, waking a few times crying and one of them was quite difficult to get over. It wasn't a night terror, she hasn't had one of those in a while, just crying and upset and every time she settled, she would start back up again. Eventually after cuddling for a little bit, she settled, and finally went back to sleep. This morning, around 6am she started moaning and shifting position a lot. I figured she would be up any minute, but it didn't amount to much until about 6:30 when she started to cry a little bit. Gretta had just nursed, so I left her to go check Emma Kate. She was still mostly asleep but fidgeting, so I climbed in with her to cuddle and hoped the transition to being awake would be better that way. Well, apparently I woke her up more by getting into bed with her and after about 2 minutes she was saying she was done cuddling and wanted to get up. Gretta was woken up by the loud talking, and so we went in to get her. From there it was just miserable, nothing was right, nothing was good, nothing was fast enough, nothing made poor little Emma Kate happy. It was just destined to be a misery no matter what happened. Eventually I just told her she needed to go lay down on her bed until she could settle (she was just being such a handful with all the complaining and whining- it is pretty far from normal for her, especially in the morning!), and after about 30 minutes of ongoing complaints... she fell back asleep. She woke up about an hour later, and it was like the day started over fresh again, and she was chipper and happy! Thank GOODNESS!!! She had not slept for her nap yesterday either, so I think she was just still tired... I made sure she slept today- when she continued to talk in her bed for 30 minutes and then call me to say she was "awake," I got in with her and cuddled for about 5 minutes before she was *out* and she slept for 90minutes! That's a really good nap for her! Hopefully she will sleep good tonight... I don't think I can take another morning like that one again! It was AWFUL!!! :(

Gretta was a great little girl today, we're working on getting her down to 2 good naps a day so that hopefully she will sleep better at night... lately she has continued waking up every 1.5-2 hours after about 10 or 11pm, which has been exhausting. She did better last night and napped well today so hopefully it will be a good night! She spent much of the day entertained by some toys and watching Emma Kate, and is loving the "chew toys" we got her. We keep thinking that teeth must be on the way but nothing has come up yet! She has been enjoying participating in story time before Emma Kate's naps, and Emma Kate has enjoyed reading books to her! It's so sweet- I think a lot of it is just memorization, but she gets all excited about certain parts of each book and puts a lot of emphasis into the words. Gretta likes the pictures I think... :)

We are making a little headway around here, working in the evening after the girls are down for the night- Greg has been working in the garden and little by little in the addition, and I've taken on the project of painting the walls of the workshop so that shelving/work tables can be put up and all the tools and boards can be stored properly. It will be so nice once it is all set up!

We have had a couple of really fierce wind storms here in the last couple of weeks, and just the other day we had crazy winds from the south which is really unusual here. One of the walls on the old, old part of the old shed actually got blown off- it was ironic because I had just mentioned to Greg within the last month or so that I was amazed that the old old part was still standing- I had expected it to give in to the weather long before now. And I pointed out the fact that that part of the wall had shifted so much that it really didn't have anything significant for support... well, the only thing supporting it was the stretchers that the siding was hanging on, and apparently they weren't very sturdy- they mostly looked like sawdust from being ancient and having at one point in time been devoured by termites!! Pretty crazy. I think we're going to have to get out the last few items out of there before it completely goes... but watch it last another 5 years sitting there unused... ha!

New adventures!

We took Emma Kate to a gymnastics place today to let her try a class out- it was supposed to be for kids 2-3 years old, but ended up being a group of about 7 kids, all older, and some of them somewhat experienced. There was a 2 year old boy, but he wasn't really in the class, just running around with his dad playing on the equipment and having a blast. So, after we sort of realized that it wasn't really what Emma Kate was needing, we ended up just playing around too! She ran around a lot, climbed over and under pads, and had a good time jumping on the trampolines! It took her a little while to warm up to it, but I think in the end it was good fun for her. And great exercise- hopefully she will sleep well tonight! We are trying to find a good class for her to have fun in before starting some swim lessons this summer.

Gretta had a good time watching big sis playing, although it wasn't exciting enough to keep her awake the whole time- she passed out while Daddy was holding her walking around... :) She's been a great little girl during the days lately- very smiley, laughing more, and self-entertaining rolling on the floor with some toys! Night is a different matter altogether though... She slept so much better for the first 4 months of her life (while we were away from home that is!) than she has lately... I'm covering my clock at night so I can't agonize over the fact that she's awake again only a hour or so after the last time... argh. Maybe it's a growth spurt or teeth coming in that are bothering her? Hope it clears up soon and she can go back to being a peaceful sleeper again!

Daddy is doing well- getting around great and seems more comfortable. Still doing physical therapy and taking things slow with weight carrying and such, and he will be re-evaluated on May 4. We got all the fruit trees trimmed- Greg had done some of it on the smaller trees, but we like to hire a friend-of-a-friend who doesn't mind a little tree climbing and going out on the limbs to get the big apple tree done! It always looks so much better when it's been trimmed back so dramatically! We're hoping for a great season- she tells us our peach trees are some of the best ones she's seen in the area- sounds like a lot of them aren't doing so well... ours are wonderfully happy!!! We've also gotten the garden up and running a bit- not too much, as it's still pretty cold here most days, but it's good to see some progress there- the asparagus has even started coming in and we had enough from two harvestings to have it as a side with a meal the other night- it was delicious!!! :)

We've ordered some beeswax candles from a great company out of Kentucky in order to attempt to go without electric lights for the summer- we try to be judicious with out electricity, but a lot of things have become so second-nature that we take advantage of it. There's so little of the day in the summer where we need light in the house, so we're going to make an effort to use candlelight instead of bulbs! If it is reasonably doable for us, maybe we'll keep it up... The beeswax candles are going to be great! We'll see where we go from there... :)

Gretta sitting a little bit

This was taken 3/25/11, Gretta is getting stronger and stronger, and can just about sit unsupported! she does really well until she starts to go to one side, then there's just no fighting it! She is getting her legs up under her when she's on her belly too, so I imagine it won't be long before those arms get strong and she starts crawling around here!

Just a few recent pictures- we've had some really incredible weather intermixed with some really dreary, cold, rainy weather. We've really enjoyed getting everyone outside as much as possible when it's nice!

Emma Kate enjoyed some "airing out" time today, it was so nice and warm, she got a big kick out of it! I can see potty training this summer... :)

We have an awesome crop of asparagus starting! We are so excited!!!

Finally outside again!

We have had the craziest weather lately- one day it's nice, the next it's freezing, then in one day we had around 8 significant changes in condition. We had such severe wind the other night we all thought the roof was coming off! It was insane. Today was gorgeous out but still a little windy and chilly. We spent our outside time in the barn to stay protected from the wind, and had a great time! Gretta really enjoyed watching Emma Kate play in the hay- she was running and falling in it, and Gretta was just laughing!!! Emma Kate thought it was pretty funny too. Emma Kate has had a little runny nose for a couple days but it seems to be slowing down, never really amounted to much, thank goodness- knowing how little it took to put her in such bad shape last fall, it's wonderful to see her coping so well with it now- it's like it makes no difference for her now! It's just amazing.

We had a nice visit with Grandpa Saz, Abuelita, and Aunt Alexa this past weekend. Alexa got to come down with Addison, and Emma Kate still refers to "that boy" when she recalls something he did. We had a great brunch with them at Cracker Barrel- one of very few times we have been out to a restaurant with everyone in tow! Gretta decided to do us a favor and take a nap shortly after we arrived, and miracle that it was, she woke up just as we were finishing eating!

I'm having trouble with the website that hosts all my pictures, hopefully we'll get some new ones up soon!

Here are a few recent pictures- they got overlooked the last few times I posted! Blogspot is doing something funny with picture/text right now and I can't get things to line up right. I think most of the pictures are probably self-explanatory! There's lots of "airplane" action going on, and Gretta is bringing her legs up underneath herself when she's on her tummy... now just waiting for the arms to kick in and I'm afraid we'll have crawling going on! She's getting really strong sitting up and has been very giggly too. She likes to squeal really loud too, just to make sure everyone is paying attention. She's been sleeping in her crib most of the night- she is so much easier to move to the crib after she has nursed than Emma Kate ever was- she still wakes several times to nurse, but we're working on getting her back down in the crib each time. Now if we could get past the pooping at night issue, that would be great... :) Emma Kate has had a few dicey nights lately- she is doing well with the bed in her own room but has had a few nights recently where she wakes up crying again- I had sooo hoped she was past that. She is doing great otherwise- we couldn't believe how much she ate at dinner tonight!!! She is talking better and better- she went from saying 2 words together when we came home to saying 3 words, and now she will say 4 words too! She also knows her numbers 1-10 reading them and can often count to ten on her own!