Cosette is clapping!

But not because we taught her how. We can't even get her to clap with us. She just started clapping her hands together on her own. And we're NOW trying to teach her when to clap.

wee!

favorite toy = a dowel rod

close call

Our computer crashed early this morning. Johnny just finished fixing it. Not only is he a great Honey, he's a computer tech at heart. Thankfully, we didn't lose any data, and Johnny made a 2nd back-up of all our pictures & data on our external hard drive.

Our Day:
The kids stayed in their pajamas all day & I in my work-out clothes after finding out that Cosette's 9-month check-up was cancelled due to her doctor calling in sick. I managed to get on the treadmill for 15 minutes while Henri watched Jonah, but Cosette woke up from her morning nap & insisted that she needed to crawl toward & touch the treadmill. It was all over when Henri decided it would be fun to smash her little hand by purposefully sitting on it. Between playing with & caring for the kiddos, I did laundry, made grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch & wild rice soup for supper, and read blurbs from Money, Possessions, and Eternity by Randy Alcorn that I picked up from the library. And now that the kids are in bed, I'm catching up on the computer.

9 months old

her papa liked her smile in this one

one year ago

we closed on our current home. We like our house, but can we take it back?

I'd say she's officially crawling now

though slowly...thankfully! I'd post a video, but I don't know how. So here's an action pic.

turning over in bed

Because this blog is like a journal/baby book for me, I hereby make the "exciting" announcement that I found Cosette had turned over onto her tummy in her bed for the first time today. She can roll over easily these days, but this is the first time I've found her on her tummy in her bed after waking up from a nap. (Now aren't you glad you read this? Hee, hee, hee.)

We didn't go to the Kelley Farm because of the rain, so

my sister (Jaime), brother-in-law (Tony), nephew (Chase), mom, brother (Brandon), and my family met at the very crowded Mall of America on Sunday afternoon. After managing to use our time there to all go in on a wedding gift for a cousin getting married in September, we headed back to our house for a spaghetti dinner made by Tony & Jaime and a rousing game of Catch Phrase initiated by Brandon. Henri & Chase ran all over the house playing with every toy and anything they could get their hands on.

We got a museum pass to the Kelley Farm because I've been reading tons of books about farms to Henri lately and thought it would be fun to wrap it all up with a trip to a farm. My mom worked there as an interpreter for 9 years. As kids, Jaime and I used to dress up and volunteer there too. Surprisingly, neither Johnny nor Tony have ever been there. Ah well, maybe we can go when things dry up.

What did we do to get Baby Girl to go to sleep in her sleeveless sleepsack?

What's that she's sleeping with? :) Can you guess?

We went to Minnehaha Falls today

We went to the playground, um, I mean tot lot.













Henri found a stick or two to play with.





















Cosette was tired and fell asleep in the stroller. (Maybe because we didn't actually get out of the house until after lunch as I am not a go-go mama.)

3rd tooth, & she's none too happy about it

• top right tooth came through today
• she bit me while nursing yesterday
• she's outgrown her sleepsack & is crying right now while I attempt to get her used to the new sleeveless one. She loves the mitted sleeves on her other one, but her legs have to curl up to her chest just to fit her in it, and for some reason, that just doesn't seem healthy.
  

Cosette & Silas

Our Bible study group meets on Thursday nights. We're studying Acts. One of the other couples in our group had their first baby in February. Here is Cosette (8 months) posing with the very smiley & cuddly baby boy, Silas (6 months).

I'm moving the wrong way! Backwards!

Great-Grandma, Grandma, & Chase visit

This is the only picture I took today of our visit from my Mom, Grandma, and nephew Chase. They had lunch with us, and Henri had a fabulous time pretending to be a fire-fighter with his cousin.

ladybug

not crawling yet, but she wants to...

pictures of a sleeping boy

Henri: "Mama, I want you to take pictures of me sleeping."

Eggless Banana Bread

A staple in our household when our freezer overflows with very ripe bananas. Sometimes it doesn't turn out too pretty. And I'm not about to enter my recipe in a baking contest.





But it still tastes good!

dig and fix no more; now just dig

BREAKING NEWS: My boy can dig away now without the added effort of having to fix his tool. The backhoes at the park near our home have been replaced with new ones.

where facial hair comes from

Last night as Johnny blessed Henri & kissed him goodnight, Henri said: "You have hair on your face, Papa?"

Johnny: "Yes, I do."

Henri: "You shave it off?"

Johnny: "A little."

Henri: "When I get big, then I will get hair on my face too."

Johnny: "Yes."

Henri: "When I get big, the doctor will put it on."

today's milestones

Today Cosette:

• got into a sitting position from her tummy
• pulled herself up onto her knees in her crib

She's leaning forward from sitting & rocking on her knees (kind of). She pivots like this in a circle & manages to slowly get what she wants if it's within 3 feet of her.

correlation

Henri, coming inside the house this morning after trying to watch a skid loader work on a home east of ours: "Mama, I need some sunglasses."

Me, walking toward him: "I'm sorry, Bud, but we don't have any that fit you."

Henri, stepping outside to look at the skid loader & quite dramatically surrounding his eyes with both of his hands to show me how the sun is shining right into them: "I need some sunglasses!"

Me: "I'm sorry, Buddy. I just don't have any for you."

Henri thinking for a moment: "Can you turn off the sun?"

Me, quickly without thinking: "No, without the sun, it would get really cold & dark like in the winter. Then we would all freeze to death."

Henri: "Just like Adam & Eve died?"

Me, with a hesitant giggle: "Um, yes."

Satisfied, Henri skipped back outside.

National Night Out

Our neighbor, Sondra, who lives behind us hosted a neighborhood gathering for National Night Out this evening. Though I only stayed a short time before having to bring Cosette in to go to bed, we enjoyed getting to know our neighbors better. We have many neighbors who are immigrants from Somalia, Laos, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Mozambique. I finally met the matriarch of the Somalian family next door, Qali. She operates her own Islamic book/men's clothing/toy/furniture store in the Somali Market. Johnny especially enjoyed drinking some fresh roasted coffee that our neighbor from Eritrea made, and he talked with our Laos neighbor about his stays in Thailand, Paris, and finally the U.S. where he is now a citizen. Henri played with our young Somali & Ethiopian neighbors. One reason I'm sad to leave this area is that there are so many people representing different cultures right here in our neighborhood that we can learn about. What an education! (What a mission field!)

Here's the skinny on our 1 showing:

We haven't heard anything, nor is there any evidence that anyone came through since the real estate agent didn't leave a card. We hope they found the place since our address is confusing. Our Realtor sent a feedback form, but the real estate agent hasn't returned it.

sometimes a mama can't decide what picture she likes best, so she posts them all

Do you see her cheerleader pose?
Favorite toy: USB cable (only under strict supervision)
Johnny's so proud...that she likes "techie" equipment for toys, but he also used to be a college football cheerleader...not that he sat in that pose...uh, yeah, that's just a girl thing... :)

Henri & Ava at the beach

"Ava, will you play with me?"
"Ava, let's go into the water!""Ava, come!""It's okay, Ava. I won't push you under the water anymore."

I wish I could have taken a picture of Johnny pushing a cart like this

today at the grocery store. We decided to run errands during our showing this morning. While walking into the store, Henri saw a cart like that above (only the car was green) and immediately jumped in. I have never used one of these while shopping, but being that Henri was so excited, we decided to use the cart. Johnny was SO EMBARRASSED as he pushed the HUGE cart around the store, barely able to turn the thing as the back "swivel" wheels didn't touch the ground. We laughed and laughed, and I so wanted my camera as Henri happily "drove" the car and honked the horn (yes, we beeped all the way through the store). The cart can fit 4 children in it (2 in the car & 2 in the front basket). I'm sure that Henri will be on the look-out for these carts whenever we go shopping now that we let him ride in it. And it's a rare occasion when Johnny comes with me, so I suspect I'll be the one pushing around the large cart that's such a joy to our son.

SHOWING!

Our home has been on the market for 3 months to the day, and our first home showing is today at 10:30am! We just found out at 9:00am, so we're scrambling to get the house clean. Please be praying that God might be pleased to grant a sale from just this one and only showing!

after the open house, our realtor e-mailed us,

"Open went well and we had 6 agents through. We had everything in the area open and almost every agent said, 'I didn’t know this development was here.' Hang in there."