Mel's Fantastical Insights

Lots of things have happened in November. Here is the best summation. We've been busy. Still haven't unpacked all the boxes or really begun the real scrubbing of the house before the holidays. Thanksgiving was fun and very non traditional, we had a seven course meal which was truly fantastic. Alice has learned to crawl, pull up, and steal toys from Daniel. Daniel in turn has started to more so try to kill his sister and then asks to go to Grandma's so that he can be happy. Here are some funny moments of the last month. Daniel still thinks he is tiny and loves to crawl in boxes.   We have been trying to teach Alice her signs and this is her version of all done. We like to call it her power sign.   This is absolutely adorable thanks to Grandma for the dress! Alice is so cute. I tried to take Daniel's picture but he refused.   This is Alice crawling towards me.   This picture is Daniel, obviously, I kept hearing him get out of bed when he was supposed to be takin

We carved pumpkins the other day with our friends the Harris family. Daniel LOVED it. He loved scooping out the guts and he loved having friends over. We didn't have a working printer and didn't like the faces that came with the carving kit so Jason drew one. It was great but then Daniel thought it was much more fun to draw on the pumpkin. Alice did not think so highly of the pumpkin guts. This is my favorite room in our house, our kitchen. Alice loves it too. These are some last memories of us living with Grandma. Daniel and Abby had many a days like this. Abby wanted everything that Daniel had or some days Daniel wanted only what Abby had. This is a good example of the end of one of those days. This is just an adorable outfit on an adorable little girl. One day we will be moved in and it will be awesome. Some of Daniel's new things are that he has Jason's old office phone and he calls everyone on it and has pretend conversations for many minutes. It is pret

To my many friends who read this blog, here is a sales pitch. My brother in law Jonny and husband Jason and a gifted artist Peter, have released a fun i phone app that is a toddler game. So if you have an i phone or know someone who does, ask them to spend a dollar and enjoy! It is called Shape Tapper. Here is the website . We did finally move in to what Daniel calls "the dirt house." Then we finally got internet! Both kids are sleeping right now....amazing. Alice is finally in her crib and own room. The house still looks like a pile of boxes and dust but the dishes are done and we have a working laundry room so the rest can just wait. It was an adventure getting in that is for sure. Daniel is still concerned that there is no grass in the yard but what can you do? Alice is rolling over and scooting. Has anyone seen this? Babies who just scoot? She inches her way while sitting up by putting her arms down and raising her butt and scooting. It never fails that sh

So life at my parent's house is great. We do lots of fun things including canning and picking apples. Daniel of course loves these things. First he loves doing what he calls "making tomatoes."   Mom has an apple tree that had lots of apples this year. So we went outside to harvest them when the time seemed right. Daniel thought it was so cool to pick apples and continued to throw them in the box. The girls just love being outside.     Alice and Abby love to be outside. Abby is learning how to pull herself up and try to walk. Daniel of course threw apples at Abby in hopes of making them into the box.   We did have one problem of not being tall enough and not really wanting to get the ladder out. First we pulled out a rake and mom held down the branches while everyone pulled the apples off. Then Stephanie climbed the tree with the rake to get the apples. Eventually Stephanie just shook the tree until she almost fell out and we got all but about fifteen apples o

Alice has begun sitting up. She can sit for about a minute on her own and then for about five minutes supported. Grass is also her new favorite thing and she will grab the blanket that she sits on and move it so that she can grab the grass. She can currently pull of fist fulls of grass with no hesitation. Although she did face plant in the grass and decided that the grass was not where her head should be. Daniel loves raspberries. He loves to run outside and pick raspberries straight from the bushes. Then he loves to run around the yard at grandma's house screaming. Alvin the dog is actually more afraid of Daniel than the other way around. Our house is coming along and hopefully within the month so we can get more settled. Yellowstone was a successful trip and our kids had a blast. Daniel could not see out the binoculars so eventually we just started pointed out animals that he could see on his own which were: buffalo. Good things seeing four million buffalo was exciting

As most of my "readers" know we have moved in with my parents for the next six weeks while we wait for our house to be finished. The move did not go as planned. It took three times as long as I thought to sort through all the little stuff that no one likes to pack. And instead of packing to go to one place we were packing stuff for storage, grandma's house and Jason's studio apartment. Cleaning out the apartment I heard was a beast as well. But hopefully this will be our last move for a long time. Daniel has been a monster lately and coming to Grandma's has cured that. He loves to water the garden with grandma in the morning. He helps take care of the two babies. He eats more regularly than he has in months. And he is still sleeping and being really good. He loves playing with his two aunts and uncle that are also living her in this big but ever shrinking house. Everyday he has told me that he doesn't want to go home until today. We were taking a

There is a lot to report today so we will start with a funny story. THe other day Daniel hit Jason and Jason picked him up and said "What do you need to say?" Daniel quickly replied "Thank you." It was really funny. Jason, Daniel and I walked our first 5K. It was my sister Tiffany's idea. She has started working at a new running store in Highland called Get Fit. (So if anyone needs new shoes go on in.) So all of us decdied to do it together. Now if you have seen Jason and I lately you can tell that we are not the most fit of people at the moment so our goal was to walk the 5K in under an hour and to not be last. We started off last but reached both of our goals. And since we woke up not quite a half hour before the race began we were just proud of ourselves for getting there and finishing at all. Daniel has a good time once he got in the stroller, it is just the getting him in there that kills him. He thinks he should be able to walk always. We are m

I of course think my kids are super cute, although Daniel can also be absurdly annoying. But recently I have been more in tuned to my blessings and would like to share why I love my kids. Daniel 1. I love his enthusiasm for life. He wants to see, touch, and feel everything. 2. I love his ability to love the ridiculous things in life. Such as the plane part at the end of Toy Story 2. Or Dad making a silly noise. 3. I love that if we are in the car and Alice starts fussing he says "It's okay Alice, we're almost there. It's okay Alice no need to cry." 4. I love his "squeeze it" hugs. 5. I love that he loves saying prayers and reading scriptures. In fact about two days ago he said his very first prayer on his own. He remembered to say thank you for things and then blessed Alice. It was amazing. 6. I also love how much he loves my mom. He asks to go to grandma's at least every other day. 7. I love how much he loves music. Although he is very par

Alright so last week we found out that our condo was put up for sale. Jason looked up the sales price, quickly realized that is was pretty low and we feared for the type of people that would be coming through to view our condo, we were right to fear. Usually I am pretty easy going and try to be accommodating but somethings are unbelievable. So these people put in an offer on our home and then the husband wanted to come check it out so their agent and our agent agreed on a time. We thought, okay they'll be here what like a half hour? So Jason and Daniel went to look at homes for us and I stayed here to watch the show. The husband proceeded to test each outlet to see if it was hot, then he was looking in the attic space, then messing with the fuses and air conditioning. He was the first to show up so we thought, ok, this is going to be alright. Ten to fifteen minutes later someone else knocked on the door. There is this lady with three kids and a pizza box. She mumbled some

This week has been eventful. Alice has started smiling at funny sounds and especially when Daniel talks to her. She loves when Daniel gets down on the floor and "plays" with her. Daniel on the other hand has completely reverted to being a baby. He wants a blanket wrapped around him all the time, he takes "rests" on the couch like Alice, he whimpers and cries instead of talking, and is convinced that tummy time is the best time. The only big problems we have are when Daniel throws his trucks which until recently wasn't a huge problem, today that is all he has been doing. These are cute pics of Alice playing with her toys. As you can see she can already grab them and turn toward them. Alice is growing a lot and quickly. She made it through her very first Sunday at church. Everyone told me how small she is and I kept thinking, you should have seen her at three weeks...she was even smaller. Daniel has become kind of the mob king in nursery which is not as

This is Alice smiling. She smiled really early, around two and a half weeks and smiles everyday. She loves smiling at Jason and also loves her toys. That is what she is smiling at here in this picture. This is Alice's usual expression unless she is screaming then she looks much less content and slightly purple. As much as Daniel has been punky around Alice a lot and a perfect terrible two year old in many ways, he still is my sweet little boy. He loves trying to share toys with Alice and tells her about each toy. He also will sing to her, his favorite is "Rock a bye baby" to which he knows all the words perfectly.

Today was a super long day for me. Daniel was up earlier than normal and Alice was up later than normal. Needless to say I am incredibly tired. But amazingly enough we have survived our first four weeks with an infant and two year old. Daniel told me via his dinosaur that he is sad that Alice eats all the time. But other than that I think he likes her. This is my new favorite picture of my kids.   Update Since we took this picture Daniel often asks for Alice to come and sleep in his bed with him. Last night he told me he was sad and that he needed Alice to come sleep in his bed so that he could be happy.

Wednesday April 15, I woke up around 5am with some light contractions. I thought, oh this will be easy. By 8am we had called my sister and told her to come over to watch Daniel but to take her time, no big deal. 8:17am I told Jason to go get a neighbor because we needed to go to the hospital NOW! So we were ready to leave by about 8:45 and of course it took awhile to get there. Jason was awesome and yanked the car off the road every time I had a contraction which was like every three or four minutes and by the time we got to the hospital, it was just not fun. But we were glad we got there when we did because Alice basically came like this: 9:15 actually made it up to labor and delivery 9:45 checked in and moved to a room and promised an epidural as soon as the anesthesiologist was done with the three other women all trying to escape pain like me 10:30 am was feeling much better after the epidural finally kicked in. We started to get comfy thinking we would be there awhile 11am

I know that everyone believes their kid is really funny and cute. I think Daniel is just one of those kids who is ridiculously funny because of the things he is trying to say at the moment. Poor toddlers, they want so much to express themselves and know so few words to do it in. Jason started this new blog where we've been recording conversations with Daniel. Click here Check it out if you want. Other than that, still no baby yet. We are waiting fairly patiently at the moment but I have a feeling toward the end of the week might not be as good if we are still waiting. We also have still not decided on a name. I think it is down to Alice, Ruby, or Matilda. Any opinions? Daniel however had his first meltdown over the fact that we went to the store to buy something for the baby and not for him. I think it might be hard for him to have a new person in his little "me" world but hopefully he will like the baby well enough. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I took many classes in college. Most of them were history or history related. Jason teased me immensely about all the Latin and classic (which is the study of ancient Rome and Greece) classes I took always saying that they would be of no use to anyone. Due to this, I have multiple copies of Homer's Illiad and Odyssey (only in English), and numerous copies of Virgil's Aeneid in both Latin and English. Daniel loves to pull books off the bookshelf like any good two year old and his favorite one to find is one he calls "the mask book." That mask book happens to be my favorite translation of the Illiad and when Daniel finds it he insists that we read it. So needless to say we are in the end of book two of the Illiad and Daniel loves it for some reason. I could not believe that he just loves hearing about Achilles and Agamemnon and all the others. I even try to read other things with him but when he finds the "mask book" we have to read it. This is the

I guess I have taken a blogging vacation. Probably because I would rather clean my house right now than do anything else. But I wanted to share some funny pictures of Daniel's birthday before I have a new baby to blog about. Daniel's birthday was March 19th and he got a small train set which he loves. Then on that Saturday we had a small party for him at the park. He didn't want cake so we had muffins for dessert and yes I was wrong, most people wanted the chocolate muffins instead of the ones I picked out. My parents came and manned the slide with the kids which was awesome considering all the other moms that showed up were pregnant and that just makes playing on the playground with your kids kind of miserable. Daniel is concerned that I can't go down the slide with him anymore, he always wants to sit in my lap and go down but there is no lap to sit in at the moment. Needless to say none of the kids wanted to stop playing and eat or open presents. I can't re