Waiting for spring....

My gnome is waiting for spring. We had about two weeks of great weather and now it has turned back to winter. Although we need the rain and cold for the agriculture in the valley, gnome and I miss the warm weather. Oh where, oh where did you go?

Dancing

My friend Dorina asked if I had been working out. Working out? Yeah, right! When do I have time for that? Then the other night I realized............................I do work out! For about 30-40 minutes in the evening, Niana and I dance it up! We put on the iPod, turn it up loud, and just go crazy. The other night Scott was home and caught us being silly. I gave Nanahs a ribbon and she loved it even more.

So if anyone wants to "work out" with me, come on over about 6pm. It's the house with the loud music on. Ring the doorbell a few times, we may not hear you!

2008 in Review

(Double click the collage to make bigger)

Fun with Kai @ the Park

Teeter Totter Fun














Kai convincing Niana that she need to take a "bath" in his sand tub.













Oh, the horsey ride!













Swings!

AHH! Christmas Vacation

On the first day of Christmas Vacation my true love said to me, "There's some more coffee if you want some." So I quickly got out my new Starbucks (size L) mug and gingerbread scones that one of my students gave me. I had to quick take a picture to capture the AHH (relaxed) moment!

Hope you can enjoy a relaxed moment too!

Christmas Fun

Our little helper loved giving out presents this year. She was very excited to help everyone open presents.

She even helped pass out presents to everyone.


But the best thing of all was opening all her presents. A shopping cart, food to shop for, books, clothes, and even an alphabet train.

We had a very nice time spending the day with family. And Niana was the star of it all.

Baking Cookies

Niana tried her hand at making Chirstmas cookies. (Well, ok.... we cut open the tube of Pillsbury, and laid them out for her, but she did decorate them! She POURED on the red and green sprinkles. It was oh so much fun! And a tasty treat too!

Hillcrest Christmas Tree Farm

We went to Hillcrest Christmas Tree Farm today. They have a small scale steam engine train to ride. It was such a beautiful day, we rode the train and had a corn dog. Niana clapped everytime the train blew it's whistle! She also loved watching the miniature choo-choo go around and around!

16 months--

Niana will be 16 months on Nov 24th. Here are some updates...

1. Her hair is really long and in her face. She sometimes will look like Pebbles from the Flinstones.

2. She now has almost 8 teeth. She has four on top, the two middle on the bottom, and the two next to those are slowly creeping in.

3. She has found the word "No" and the word "MINE". I think maybe she found them at daycare because we haven't lost those words at home.

4. She kisses her baby (and mommy and daddy) night-night.

5. She eats at the big kid table at daycare and sleeps on a cot at daycare. (We still have her caged in a crib at home).

6. Some words she utters when she feels like it:

• mama
• dadada (or da-yee) but if asked to say dada-- she responds with mama-- very cute!
• Coco-- the dog at daycare
• ah-ble which means apple
• byeeeee or yahbyahbe when she screams it to the kids at daycare
• hyeeee (hi)
• dankyuu-- Thank you
• peeese - please -- most often in use with sign language please
• mo -- more -- also in use with sign language more
• pu-- is really up, but only when asked to say up to get up
• woo-woo is still woof woof
• moo
• baaa
• la, la, la-- is what three singing pigs say
• qua- quak is what a duck says

7. She loves to sit and look at books, color, and watch tv (especially football).

8. She can open doors, sit on the potty (just for fun--not going), and loves to slide.

WOW- what a big girl!

At the Park

My favorite season is fall. The weather starts to cool off just a little, the leaves start to fall, and there is a sense of Christmas just around the corner. Last year, my babyniana did not get to experience fall as she should. Last year, I did everything to let her experience it by having her pictures taken with wonderful fall leaves, dressing up and passing out candy on Halloween, and even having her "Baby's First Thanksgiving" outfit on. But unfortunately, she was sleeping most of the time being only 3 months old.

Now at 14 (almost 15 months) and a proficient explorer, this little adventurer was ready to experience fall. Lucky for us, today was just a great day to do that. Grandma Kathy, Niana, and I had gone shopping last week for warmer clothes for Niana. So today, having been much cooler and cloudy, was the perfect day to try out the new "back to school" clothes.

I was so very anxious to go. I was ready to pack a lunch, load up in the cars, and have our day relaxing at the park. But being a baby who rules the world, she decided it was nap time just before lunch. THEN she slept for 3 hours. SO, finally at 3:30 we took off to Fresno. When I lived on the west side of Fresno, I would frequently visit a small park in NW Fresno. I remembered it had a wonderful children's playground and a ponding basin that was the home to some ducks and geese. (Oso de Oro Park for those of you in the area).

We finally arrived and Niana went straight for the slides. She has been on the baby slides in the nursery at church and she also has a slide into her baby splash pool. So she knew exactally what they were for. She stepped up the big stairs and flew down with glee. After we spent some time on one thing, I ushered her over to the next and new exciting thing. I have never seen so much excitement on her face than each time we played with a new part of the playground. Eventually we got tired of the playground. Well, ok, I should restate that..... Mommy and Daddy got tired of the playground. So we moved on. We kept exploring the park. Leaves, sand, bushes, trees! It was all so new and such fun. We even went over to chase some friendly ducks. Then, it was over. Just as it always is..... Mommy or Daddy pick up Niana (who does not want to leave). She throws a bit of a tantrum, then calms down and enjoys the ride in the wagon up the hill and past the ever-so-fun playground without even a second glance. Her first day at a park was just perfect!

Thanks for reading my fun little adventure with Nanah! We had a lot of fun, and now since the weather is cooler we will take some pics outside, so you don't have to keep seeing the inside of our house!

Haircut

So I chopped off my hair!

On Saturday I had CPR training in the morning. As I sat there, I began to think.... "Niana is with Scott all morning. My hair is driving my nuts. I just measured it, and it's gotta be 9 inches! Time for my hair to be gone!"

For those of you who don't know. I have been growing my hair since right after I had Niana. That's when I found out my BFF Monica was diagnosed with cancer. She did loose her hair because of the treatments, but her hair is coming back slowly. The rest of us from college decicded to grow out our hair and cut it for Locks for Love. Mine has been resting at 9 inches for the longest time, so I looked up Pantene and they would take 8 inches.

Saturday I went to the last place I got my hair cut (over a year ago) and asked if they would dontate their time to cut my hair to donate. Well, I walked into the right place. The stylist actually has been doing this for 6 months. She takes the cost of the haircut and puts it into a MMA to (hopefully) increase and then donates it to wig making for people going through chemo. She had tons of wigs all over the store that came from donations right here in our small town. (It was also very cool because I could try on the wigs and see which style I liked best.)

The stylist (being very proficient at getting the most hair off of someone) knew exactally how to put my hair in ponies to get all the right lengths. And voila! Here is my hair. It kinda goes up shorter in the back (which you can't see in the pic) and I totally love it. It doesn't do so good curly, so I must straighten it, but that takes much less time than using the diffuser to dry my 10" of hair!

SO.... if you ever reach 8-10 inches and want to donate your hair, I know just the place!

(And blessings to Monica as she continues her chemo treatment and is getting rid of this cancer!)

Back to School

Ok, yeah yeah yeah. I am getting to back to blogging about Niana. School started for me on Aug 20 and we just had our first full week last week. This weekend is truly needed to rest and clean the house. I don't even know if we have any current pictures of Baby Girl! Here is a brief recap of August for all of you care :) Thanks!

August 4th- Niana's 1st year doctor appt. I got to take her to this one! Scott ususally takes her since his schedule is a bit more flexible on this than mine. Dr. said she is 95% in weight and 98% in height--- look out Sanger High, here comes your next athlete!

August 7th- last day of swim lessons. I can say that we did not learn a thing. She loves the pool and has never been afraid of it, so we paid the City of Kingsburg to let us swim. That last day we enjoyed pizza in the park with Caleb (and his parents) and Evie (and her parents).

August 18- I went back to work at school-- Niana went back to daycare.

and that's it.

She is much bigger now. She can reach all the door handles, the knobs on the stove, loves the tupperware drawer.

New words: ba (ball), hi, byeee, dadyee, mamma, woo-woo (dogs, or all animals)
sign language: more, eat, thank you-- still trying to get her to say thank you at right times.

I will try to upload pics as soon as I can but she just woke up from her short sunday nap

Swim Lessons

We are taking swim lessons with Caleb & Evie for the next two weeks at the Kingsburg Pool. Tonight was our first night and Daddy came to snap some first swim pictures. All three of the babies loved it. Although they did not kick or blow bubbles very well, they were all very good students and enjoyed the water.

Niana's First Birthday

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Happy Birthday Sweet Baby!

picture by Amy K Photography

Shaver Lake 2008

We spent a week at a friend's cabin at Shaver Lake. We rested, ate, and played with the Griffins. Both girls (just 5 months apart) had a blast. I suppose mommies and daddies did too!

Our days consisted of...

Monday: Mommies rest and watch babies play. Daddies go back to Fresno for some unfinished business (oh, and Scott bought a motorcycle!)

Tuesday: Between AM and PM naps, we ventured out to a little unknown lake (not Shaver or Huntington, but inbetween the two) for a picnic lunch. Our little rock climbers loved it! They also got to be carried in while mommies and daddies hiked a little ways. Everyone took an afternoon nap as thunder clouds rolled in. Then back for B&J's date night. They went to H. Lake for dinner. Met a few locals and a dingy dog named Harry(?).

Wednesday: Are we renting a Jet Ski? Not yet! We visited the town of Shaver, had lunch at Hungry Hut, looked at a few shops and had great COFFEE drinks at Bob's Espresso. It wa Scott & My date night.... we ate at Trapper's at the Point (yummy!) and ventured off the road to find Big Creek (a small town for Southern CA Edison workers) and the back road to Huntington Lake.

Thursday: The day to rent jet skis? Maybe tomorrow. We went up to Huntington Lake to look around. Spent the afternoon and early evening there taking pictures and enjoying some locals singing karoke while we ate pizza by the lake. The small cottage like cabins reminded me of Fallen Leaf Lake near Lake Tahoe (another adventure we had with B&J before babies).

Friday: And the last day to rent Jet Skis.... came and went. We toodled around, went to get more coffee at Bob's and then took the kids to the park---- where the sun was beating down it burnt our bottoms to slide or swing, so we opted for the laps back and forth on a church porch.

Saturday: our last day... how sad! We cleaned up the cabin and came home. Scott & I then got to work on our yard. Niana's birthday party is this Friday, so we wanted to make sure there were no big puddles created from her big birthday splash.

Thanks Griffins for having so much fun with us this past week!

Water Play

On the 4th, we also played in the water! Niana loved it! She was in the sprinkler trying to grab onto a stream of water. She followed the house to the source of the water and eventually found some mud. She played at Evie's water table with Evie & Rebecca Egli.

Right outside my kitchen window there used to be a strip of useless land. It was dirty, hot, and dusty. It was an empty path to a dead end in the yard. But this spring, we decided to turn it into a salsa garden. We chose a variety of chili peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, and a few more herbs for cooking. We put a gate at the end to the front yard, and made little stepping stones go out to the front drive. I also threw out some sunflower seed to see what would happen.

So here are a few snapshots of our garden. It makes looking out my kitchen window bareable! I still need a bit of ground cover to come in to hide the dirt, but it is coming along!

We have about 20 zillion chilies and 2 tomatoes. The herbs are growing nicely (I used cinnamon basil in our chicken dish last night). The bell pepper plant is stunted and the tomatios are blooming, but not prodicing fruit. The cilantro grew like crazy and has now withered into nothingness, but it is my first attempt at a garden, and I am enjoying the look of it from my window!

Niana's Name in Lights

Amazing what creativity sparks after a great meal and pyrotechnics display at the Griffin's house. It's a sparkly shout out to our little gal (who slept through it all...sort of)!

3rd day at home......

Today is my 3rd day on summer vacation. WHOO-HOO! No, paying for daycare for the next 8 weeks! It is also my third day at home with Niana. What do I do now? That's the question at hand. For any of you stay at home mommies, give me some ideas. How do you spend your days? So far, we have read every book in the house (and have pulled them off of every shelf). We have explored the tupperware drawer (and pulled every container out and they are strewn across the living room). Tv jus sucks us in and nothing gets accomplished. I tried to organize our day with activities (like I would do at school) but with the attention span of, well, a one year old... it's only 10 min at the most at any one activity.

So, what should I do with the rest of my time?

TIA,
SUSAN