Can I show you something amazing?

When Ariel was a toddler, I started recording every word she could say, along with how she said it. I stopped on the day she turned 18 months. Here's her list:

Cookie: “coo-kee”
Hot
Banana: “mee-mee”
Movie: “moo-ee”
Potty: “pah-ee”
Ariel: “Ah-I”
Pee (her “girly parts”)
Felicity: “Fiffy” “Fissy” “Foofy”
Chair: “tee”
Clip: “pip”
Water: “waa-oh”
Bubble
Me
On (used when asking to turn the fan on)
Horsey: “Hee”
Cereal: “see-io”
Radio: “ee-oh”
Baby: “bay-bay” or “beeps”
Clothes: “kos” or “kwos”
Goal
Clock: “cock”
Cracker: “cack”
Uh-oh
No
Book: “gook”
Up (may mean up or down)
Down (ditto)
Hat
Cat
More: “muh” or “mo”
Shirt
Thanks: “dinks!”
This “dis”
That “dat”
Door
Pillow “pio”
Walk (may mean walk or rock)
Duck
Car
Daddy: “dat”
Mommy: “muh” or “mum” or “mom”
Grandpa: “pa”
Mine: “my-moh”
Phone: “boo”
Computer: “cup”
Cup: “ccccup”
Boob
Eye
Ear: “eee” or “eee-ee”
Nose: “no”
Mole: “mo” (also means nipple)
Hair: “haaay” (sometimes sounds like “ear”)
Knee
Flower: “fwow-oh”
Juice
Hi
Bye
Shoe
Dolly: “dawww-y”
Berry: “bay-ee”
All Gone: “aa-ah!”
Brush: “shoosh”
Bush: “shush”
Pool: “poo”
Toe
Cheese
Bite: “baps” or “bite”
Wall: “wa”
Two
Three: “fee”
The End: “Dee-ee”
Car
Treat: “teet”
Elmo: “mee-mo”

Animal Sounds:
Monkey: sniffing
Goat: uh-uh-uh while shaking head as if having a seizure
Dog: barks or says “ooh ooh” (soft oo)
Kitty: meow (almost perfect imitation of a cat)
Cow: Mmmm
Duck: Kack kack kack
Bird: teet teet teet
Lion: Rawr
Fish: smooches

Non-Animal Sounds:
Volcano: explosion sound
Grape: squishing sound

Ariel at 18 months

Then there's Foof. I realized the other day that I haven't been doing this, so I've spent yesterday and today making a list of everything she says. She will be 19 months on the 9th, so she's not much older than Ariel was. Here's her list:

Adios ("Ah-dose!" She loves to yell this when people leave)
Airplane
All clean
All gone
Apple
Ariel (I-yel)
Baby
Babydoll
Ball
Balloon
Banana ("ba-ma")
Bath
Bear
Big girl
Birdie
Blanket ("banket")
Blue
Boca (Spanish for mouth)
Boo
Boob
Book
Bowl
Brush
Bubbles
Butt
Button
Bye-bye
Car
Ceiling
Cereal ("See-yull")
Chair
Cheese
Chocolate (Chock-it)
Coat
Coldee
Colors
Come
Cookie
Cow
Cough
Cracker
Cup
Cute
Da-da
Daddy
Dammit
Diaper ("diapee")
Did it!
Doggie
Dolly
Dora
Down
Duck
Ears
Eat it
Elephant ("effant")
Elmo
Ew
Eyes
Fast
Favorite
Felicity
Fish
Fit (as in, someone is throwing a fit –or she wants to throw one)
Fix it
Fondant
Food
Foofy
Foot
Fork
Garbage
Glasses
Go (used to cheer herself on when riding her horsey)
Goat
Grandma ("Gamma")
Grandpa ("Gappa")
Grass
Green
Gross
Hair
Happy
Hat
Heavy
Help
Hi
Hold you
Horsey
Hot
Hug
Hurray
Hurt
I don’t know
Icky
Jacket
Juice
Kiss
Kitchen
Kitty (Kee)
Kitty-Cat (Kee-Kat)
Lap
Laugh
Light
Like it
Luna
Macaroni ("roni")
Mama
Markers
Market (as in “this little piggy went to market”)
Matt
Meow
Milk
Moo
Moon
More
Mouth (mouff)
Movie
My turn
Nap
Nemo
Nigh-night
No
No-no
Nope (mope)
Nose
Nummy
Oink
Ojos (Spanish for eyes)
Okay ("tay")
Old treat (o-teet – the treats that Ariel used to get for going potty)
On
Open it
Other (O)
Ovaltine (o-teen)
Ow
Painting
Pajamas (jamas)
Panties
Pants
Paper
Peaches
Pelo (Spanish for hair)
Phone
Pie (how she said "up high" until recently)
Piece
Pig
Pillow
Pink
Plate (“pate”)
Please (peese)
Pocket (used to ask to play ring-around-the-rosey)
Poke
Pooh
Poopy
Popcorn
Potty
Pretty
Purple
Puzzle
Quack
Ribbit (croaky “ibbit!”)
Sad
See
See ya
Set (as in, “set… go!”)
Shake it
Sheep
Shirt
Shoe
Silly ("see")
Sit
Slide
Soap ("soup")
Sock
Sorry
Spank
Spin
Spoon (“poon”)
Stuck
Table
Tap (as in, tapping her toothbrush)
Teddy
Teeth
Thank you
This (used only in reference to Chapstick)
Three ("fee")
Tickle
Timeout
Toby
Toes
Too
Toothbrush ("pooh-buhsh")
Touch
Tough (often said after a fall, as in “I’m tough!”!)
Towel ("Tow-woh")
Toy (toe-way)
Truck
Tummy
Turtle
Tweet (teet)
Uh-uh
Up
Up High
Wet
Whee
Window
Windy
Woof
Work
Yes
Yogurt
Yucky
Zip it

Felicity at 18 months

Is that not insane?

A Baby Song

One Year Old

Felicity's first birthday was last Saturday, the 9th. It was a lot of fun!

I really wanted to make the party something special, so I came up with the idea of decorating the table with ribbons and photographs.


I also hung ribbons from the chandelier and from Felicity's high chair, and I used a doll cradle to hold her gifts. I thought the final look was very cute. It was also cheap - each spool of ribbon was only $1 at Michaels!

We wanted to do a traditional cake for Felicity's birthday, and frosting cakes has never been my strongest skill. But, after a couple hours of fiddling, I came up with this:


Dan's sister Heather came up from Salem with her family, which is always fun! My mom, dad, and youngest brother came, as did Navi and Luna. Rae Ann also stopped in for a few minutes to give Felicity her gift. She was also kind enough to take a few pictures and videos!






Felicity's first attempts at cake eating were hilarious! She can be such a dainty little thing!



Eventually, she got the hang of it.




Felicity got some great gifts! Books from Aunt Heather, a cute outfit from Aunt Heidi, pretty bowls from Auntie Rae, crayons from Navi and Luna, and a soft doll from Mommy and Daddy.



Oh, and Grandma gave a wonderful gift as well - she brought snacks for the party! Then, because she loves to outdo herself, she also brought two DARLING outfits for her, which I'm already trying to wrestle stains out of. That child...

our version of bronzed baby shoes

For Ariel, we got her handprint and footprint put into ceramic professionally - 3 times, at 6 weeks, 6 months, and 1 year. We didn't want 6 ceramics lying around, but we didn't want to only spend money to preserve Ariel's precious babyness, and not Felicity's, so Dan came up with this idea:


This beautiful pastel was drawn by artist Li Tie in a mere 20 minutes. Amazingly, it was done from a live, very squirmy and uncooperative subject, rather than a photograph. I am so happy with the results.

Time to buy a frame!

Sweet Girl Time

Ariel asked me to put Felicity in the doll cradle with her. Here's what happened.

She's getting so big!

I went to take Ariel to the potty recently, and, to keep Felicity entertained, I propped her up on the Boppy "tummy time" style. I placed a stuffed animal in front of her, so that she would have something to play with/chew on.

When I came back a couple minutes later, this is what I found.


Have I mentioned that she'll be 6 months old on Saturday?

Geez Louise. I can't believe it.

Makeshift Mama - check out that grin!

Hey, all! In case you haven't noticed, I put a "feed" (for those of you who don't know, a feed is a continually updating list of blog posts) for Makeshift Mama at the top of this page, so instead of posting to let you know every time there's something over there, you can just glance at the feed to see if you've missed anything.

I want to draw special attention to today's MM post, though, because it contains THE FIRST EVER CAUGHT-ON-PHOTOGRAPH SMILE BY FELICITY!

Yeah, I knew you'd be excited. Come on over!

Gifts Made Easy

As some of you may have noticed from reading yesterday's post, receiving gifts for the girls has become a stressful subject in our little family. With limited space and a vague desire for order, Christmas and birthdays can feel like sabotage.

RaeAnn (I talk about her a lot, huh? Yeah. That's cuz she's awesome.) suggested that I make a gift registry for the girls on MyRegistry.com. So I did.

I'm not linking directly to the girls' registry here, because it includes our last name. But if you KNOW our last name (and if you're getting my girls a gift, you probably do), you can search by either of their first names and our last name and it will lead you to their registry.

Anyway, I'll add a link to the MyRegistry main page on our sidebar, so you can access it any time.

This way, when you give a gift to our girls, you can know that the gift will be loved and used, and that we will happily make room for it in our tiny home, even if it means other things have to head to Goodwill to create a space.

Thanks for loving my princesses!

We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

Welcome to the S____s' 1st annual online Christmas letter! We're so glad you made it!

Now you may be asking yourself: Is this some newfangled attempt to reduce waste, save trees, and defeat commercialism by forgoing conventional Christmas cards, or is it just Jenni's way of getting out of having to address 50 envelopes?

Well, I like to think of it as both. There are few things as valuable, in our modern, fast-paced lifestyle, as efficiency.

This year has been a very eventful one for our little family. So here's a brief recap:

Ariel turned 1 on February 19th.


Since then, she has become a proficient walker, talker, jumper, counter, and ABC sayer. And she makes us both laugh out loud multiple times a day.

Felicity Ann was born on August 9th. She weighed 7 lb. 5 oz. The addition has been a joy and a challenge, between the sleepless nights, dairy allergy, and complete lack of spare time that comes with having two babies that nap at different times. But she is a beautiful little girl with a killer smile, and she's been more than worth it so far!


Dan has continued to go to school full-time and work part-time. This has been a great time of self-exploration for him, as he discovers what he's good at and shapes his career path accordingly. It has also been wonderful for our family, since he is home a lot between classes and can take a very active role as a parent. He has changed more diapers this year than most men in the United States probably have, as well as done more tickling and chasing and reading aloud, and all of his ladies feel very blessed to have him in their lives.


I spent half of the year pregnant, which made it hard to really interact with and enjoy Ariel. Which is part of why I have relished the past few months so much. I feel like I'm just now discovering on a whole new level what an amazing person she is, and I absolutely adore her. The past few months have been some of the hardest and most rewarding of my life, and I am finishing this year so very, very grateful to Jesus for pulling me through the hard times and for giving me such wonderful blessings.


Well that's our year in a nutshell! Please leave a comment telling us how you're doing! And if you want to be able to see what's going on with us throughout the year, here is my blog's main page.

Merry Christmas!

Odd...

I looked down during dinner today to see Felicity happily munching on a piece of toilet paper. Apparently Dan had grabbed it to kill a bug with, then changed his mind and used the dust buster instead. He had set the toilet paper down on the counter, and, when I walked by bringing the food to the table, the breeze I created was enough to blow it down onto Felicity's baby seat.

The ecstatic grin on her face and the little piece of wet paper on her tongue were a hilarious combination. Hilarious. I would have taken a picture for you, but I was too busy trying to prevent further ingestion of bleached wood pulp.

A Casualty to Chocolate

I like my chocolate.

Oh yes, I do.

It's second only to my cheddar cheese, and even then, there are days when the chocolate wins. And since I can't HAVE my cheddar cheese, chocolate has taken a prominent place in my life.

Of course, most chocolate bars and such contain milk, so I'm pretty much limited to Oreo cookies (which i don't do often because I consume them SOOOO fast), Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips, and Lindt 70% cocoa bars.

Can you guess which one costs the least? Can you guess how often I frequent the baking aisle at the store?

Well, poor Felicity is often in my arms as I munch my chocolate chips, and in the past few days there have been a few "episodes."

Like two days ago, when, about 20 minutes after eating chocolate chips and then putting her down in her swing, I turned to gaze lovingly at her, only to discover this:


Here it is close up.


Yes, that dark area under her chin is the other half of it. Apparently, a chocolate chip had fallen on her, been pinched under her little chin, and melted there. And the stain is still in the shirt, since it was light enough to be invisible when the shirt was wet, so I dried it. Dang it.

And then, about half an hour ago, I was nursing her when I noticed a grayish spot on her shirt. I felt it, and it was oddly crunchy. I reached underneath and scratched it, and pulled out a fingernail full of flaky brown stuff that smelled oddly sweet.

Here she is with her shirt turned inside out:


Apparently a chocolate chip had fallen into her shirt and been pinched there. It didn't dislodge in the wash, and I had washed, dried, and folded the shirt without ever noticing.


So when I put her shirt on her this morning, I put a chocolate chip on her, too.

Poor little thing! She's gonna grow up wondering why chocolate makes her feel violated.

Not enough Fiffy

It seems like I spend so much more time talking about Ariel on this blog than Felicity, because there isn't really as much going on with Felicity comparatively. So, for today's post, I thought I'd show you all two of my favorite recent shots of her. She may not DO much, but she sure is cute while she does it!

Baby Kisses

First of all, let me just say that this Baby Blues pretty much sums up my life right now.

Over the last few days, Felicity has started giving kisses! When I lean in to kiss her, she tilts her head forward and opens her mouth in a sweet little baby kiss. It's so precious! There is nothing quite like a kiss from a 3-month-old...

Oh, and I've come to terms with my hair. It just took a little adjustment time.

More later!

If you were a fly on our wall...

...this is what you would see.

The Crazy Day ABC's

It was the best of days. It was the worst of days.

Today felt like a constant striving - sometimes to kick butt, sometimes just not to have a nervous breakdown. Ever have days like that? I think I will describe my day starting with each letter of the alphabet, just to be odd.

Ariel was a hysterical little girl today. Between way too many viewings of Elmo and Pooh, she wailed and screamed and sobbed and took stuff that was off-limits, and she pulled up her little shirt and flashed Daddy when she was mad at him, which was the only comic relief amidst all this drama. Constantly having to deal with or even just listen to her tantrums was absolutely grating on my nerves. Dan was home most of the day, and between Ariel's insanity and Felicity's bloodcurdling screams when I left for a little while, I think his shoulders are still tense.

Emotionally, I've really been at the end of my rope lately. For the first time in my life, I've even had stress-related chest pains and faintness. Granted, if there's ever a time to be stressed, it's when you have two babies, but my lack of ability to overcome it has me concerned. Having two little girls means that I have a responsibility to tough it out and go on being the best mom I can be, regardless of my own needs. I guess what I'm finally realizing is that I can't take care of them properly if I neglect myself, so I need to find a way to take care of all of us.

Just sitting down at the computer or with a book isn't enough anymore; when I'm at home, I feel constantly on edge. Kids make it hard to get away, but Dan has been gracious enough to watch the girls and let me slip away when I ask him, which has been every week or so this month. Little trips to Starbucks or even Fred Meyer by myself have been life-saving.

My patience started out thin this morning, but the Lord knows I really tried. Not getting much sleep made me feel resentful, but it helped when Dan let me take a nap in the late morning. Of course, when I got up, I was thoroughly depressed by all the housework to be done, and when Ariel started her very long string of tantrums, it was hard to be the adult. Poor Ariel - I tried to watch my tone and temper, but there were times, I'm sad to say, that I snapped and hurt her feelings.

Really, Ariel's behavior was beyond bad. Standing on the computer chair trying to type or grab office supplies. Throwing herself or her sippy cup (why her sippy cup?) on the floor time after time, often over demands that I didn't even understand. Until, finally, when I realized that just looking at her was enough to make me clench my jaw in anger as she broke yet another rule, I put her down for an early nap. Very predictably, she didn't sleep, but that wasn't the point, was it?

When Dan got home, I rather desperately requested a break, and he let me run off to Fred Meyer to browse and buy hair dye. EXactly on cue, Felicity started screaming moments after I walked out the door, which I think is proof that Satan exists and likes to influence/sabotage my life and well-being. Yet, to his credit, my very wonderful husband didn't call and ask me to come home until I had been gone for around 45 minutes. Zipping home was the last thing that I wanted to do when I heard Fiffy's cries in the background, but, praise God, she was calmer by the time I got there, although Ariel's hysteria lasted until bedtime.

On the plus side, I cleaned out much of Ariel's closet today. Yay? Now it's time for bed. Here's wishing for happier children tomorrow!

Oops.

Felicity was fussing and chomping on her pacifier today, so I decided to do something to help her in case she was experiencing teething pain. Ariel was napping so I couldn't get to the Tylenol in her room, but I had some homeopathic teething tablets in my diaper bag.

They were already dissolving into a thin paste on Felicity's tongue when I remembered that they are made primarily of milk.

Oops.

The screams came quickly. Fortunately, they didn't last too long, but that didn't keep me from feeling like a pretty cruel parent.

A little reminder...

...of why I'm still reading every label in the store, and why I don't mind the inconvenience all that much:

I like cheese

So, Felicity has been having very broken-out, red skin and screaming a lot, and Peggy (my lactation consultant) said that it may be an allergy to something that I'm eating. On Friday, I started an allergen-free diet. Read: no DAIRY, CHOCOLATE, soy, eggs, wheat, peanut butter, or corn. It seemed like Felicity was cheerier Friday and Saturday, but Saturday night she was cranky again as well as this afternoon.

Well, this afternoon was a small Mary Kay party at Robin's house, and she served wine along with various cheeses. After drooling for awhile (and probably annoying everyone at the party with my out-loud arguments with myself), I decided to go ahead and have some and see what happened. And dang nabbit, that was some good cheese!

I was greeted with this when I got home this evening:

Two of my favorite people having a wonderful time playing together! It's great how much Dan enjoys Ariel. They really have become best buddies, especially lately. Apparently, Ariel put her daddy's hat on backwards all by herself. She's got a real sense of style!

I've nursed Felicity twice since coming home this evening, and each time, her face has gone from relatively clear to this:

So.... I think she's allergic to dairy. Which totally sucks, because dairy is pretty much my life. I have to "run a few more tests" to be sure, but I really don't know what I'm going to do if this turns out to be the case. It doesn't seem like there's a good answer. Give up dairy? I'll be so miserable! Wean Felicity? I'd feel guilty forever! Eat dairy anyway? I'd be torturing my kid!

If anyone knows some really good substitute dairy products, please post brand names and where to get them in the comments section!

Milk Face

I said I'd post it, so here it is...


And, also for your viewing pleasure:



I'd say she's completely warmed up to him. At first it was 100% Mommy, but now I don't think there's much favoritism going on apart from when she wants to nurse. She naps on his chest almost every day, and they often fall asleep together at night and then I take her when she wakes up to eat. Very sweet!

Ellie and the Beeps

So, Ari-Ellie seems to be doing a great job adjusting to the presence of her little sister. At first, it was one big emotional breakdown after another. Between spending two full days away from us and getting less attention once we got home, Ariel was a wreck. She sobbed and she screamed and she demanded and she buckled her knees anytime we tried to lead her anywhere. Dan looked at the budget and decided to stay home on Monday, to give her one more day to adjust with both of us, and the result was wonderful! By the end of the day, she seemed to be acting far more normally far more of the time. At one point, Felicity and I left for a couple hours and Dan just played with Ariel. I think she really benefited a lot from that time.


So Tuesday was our first day home without Dan. Mom came over for a good chunk of the day, and Felicity actually let Mom hold her (this was Felicity's first day letting anyone besides me hold her for more than a few minutes, Daddy included). I was free to take care of Ariel, and having me do things for her seemed to help Ariel further. Something that had really been upsetting Ariel over the weekend was if she asked me for something ("cup?") and I said, "Ask Daddy."

Wednesday was busy, but nice. Mom dropped by for about half an hour in the morning, and then RaeAnn and Juli came over with their girls for about an hour and a half, I think? I wasn't watching the clock. At one point, while everyone was playing happily, RaeAnn said to Juli, "We need to get out of here; the girls are about at their limit." I questioned this, but I shouldn't have. about 3 minutes later, all the girls were crying or being cranky at once. The older 3 recovered pretty quickly, but Ivy was still sobbing a little as they made their way out the door. And of course, as soon as they started putting their shoes on, Ariel started getting upset - she had had so much fun playing with them! All in all, it was a very, very fun visit, for moms and kiddos, and I think we need to do it again. Hear that, ladies?

Later in the day yesterday, my lovely friend Navi came over with her almost-one-year-old, Luna, and they hung out for a few hours (Ariel and Luna swapped sippies and bottles and Ariel ate most of Luna's snack - oops), and then my dear friend Mary brought us dinner, so all in all we had 9 people come over yesterday. Dan got home, I tried to serve up some lasagna onto a plate, it spilled, and I burst into tears. Dan asked, "What's wrong?" I hate that question! I don't know! Nothing! Leave me alone! The lasagna's wrong, isn't that enough? After thinking about it, I realized that it was just the complete lack of down time yesterday. I don't regret having anyone over - it was so much fun - but I'm glad to have this morning to regroup before any more visitors come.

So, anyway, back to the girls, who are what I was SUPPOSED to be posting about! This morning, I got Ariel up and put her on the floor, and she immediately said, "Beeps?" and ran into the living room with her head cocked to look for her baby sister. "Beeps" is her word for "baby," by the way. I said, "Ariel, the baby is in Mommy and Daddy's room," and she turned around and headed in there excitedly to offer kisses.

She loves to "share" her sippy cups and snacks - this morning she insisted on sharing her cereal and muffin with the Beeps. She has to hold the food real close to Felicity's mouth, and then either Ariel or I will go "numnumnum" and smack our lips, to indicate that the baby is eating. Then Ariel says "Ticks!" (thanks) and takes a bite herself. SO CUTE! She hasn't behaved aggressively toward Felicity at all (we've had a little bit of rough play, but it was innocent enough), so that's really positive. I think maybe she's young enough that she doesn't fully understand that the lack of attention she is receiving is the baby's "fault." She's more mad at us, which is just fine with me. She's not capable of inflicting any serious injuries upon me, whereas I've heard several new baby-sibling horror stories.


So that's how things are going so far. To schedule a baby viewing of your own, give me a buzz! ;-)