No noise

Think quick: worst possible case scenario with out-of-towners? First I got sick for an entire week. Then Gabrielle. Now Chris. We’ve successfully managed to avoid Chris’s family for three weeks out of their one month stay. Which would be great if they were annoying, but we like them and it is such a bummer. We might get a chance to all be healthy long enough to see them one last time this weekend before they leave!

Gabrielle is just hilarious at times. Monday morning we had a beautiful sunrise. We sat with Gabrielle in front of the window, pointing out all the colors we saw. Blue, pink, purple, orange. After a few minutes, the sun was up and the fancy colors gave way to a fully blue sky. Gabrielle took off yelling “purple crayon! purple crayon!” so we help her find her crayons expecting she just wanted to change activity and go draw. Turns out she went back to the window and tried to draw purple on the window and presumably back into the sky! How freaking adorable is that?

This morning she woke up saying “no noise”. I had a long conversation with her, which is still surprising to me.

G: No noise.
Me: That’s right, there’s no noise. It’s still dark outside and everyone is sleeping. It’s quiet.”
G: Quiet, no noise.
Me: Do you hear anything?
Cat: Meow. (Feed me)
G: Meow cat!
Me: Do you hear anything else? (motorcycle in the distance)
G: Vrom Vrom
Me: Yep, a motorcycle. Do your hear anything now?
G: No noise.

I could die, she’s so cute and pleasant to chat with sometimes!

 

Sick kid

We have a sick kid at home today, so we’ll be doing a lot of this:

In my defense, Gabrielle and I did some gardening this morning while Chris was working on the house with his dad. Gabrielle stubbornly pulled out every plant I planted to put them back in their original plastic bucket. Lucky I bought only two plants because I had to plant each 4 times!

 

Funny ideas

Gabrielle poured her own bowl of cereal this morning. Yum, goldfishcrackios!

Opening those DVD cases is hard work. Better wear protective eyewear, safety first!

 

What’s this?

My new favorite emerging sentence from Gabrielle is “what’s this?”. Scene from this morning:

Gabrielle halfway up the pantry, pointing to a jar: What’s this?
Me: That’s jam.
Gabrielle: Oh yeah, jam.

I guess that doesn’t sound like an important or funny conversation to anyone else, but HOLY COW I JUST HAD A CONVERSATION WITH MY DAUGHTER!!!! With actual back and forth! Usually I ask a question and she answers, or vice versa, but look! This time she asked a question, I answered, and she commented on my answer. Three sentences in this monster of a conversations! Woohoo!

 

January update

Oh man, I hate it when I don’t write for a long time because then I have too many stories I want to share and too many stories I forgot about entirely and it’s so intimidating that I don’t write at all, thus perpetuating the problem.

So yeah, January. Chris’s family is in town for the whole month which is awesome because, hello, free labor!! Just kidding, it’s awesome because we are happy to see them. Especially our niece Molly who we haven’t seen in 2 years! Of course my body, being a complete pain in the butt, decided this would be a good time to get sick so I’ve been in quarantine for a week. Such a bummer.

Gabrielle, oh, Gabrielle. First of all, she and Molly are adorable together. Molly is teaching Gabrielle to jump and hop like a frog, and Gabrielle hops around for 3 hours after Molly leaves. Or wait, is that hopping or seizures of over-excitement?! Gabrielle has been begging to watch TV constantly since Molly arrived, and I think she is asking for it so much because it’s the one activity that really calms her down and gives her down time. I think even she knows she’s running on fumes. She’s used to the 2 older kids at daycare, but I guess she’s not used to having 4 new people hanging around in her house!

Talking about TV, Gabrielle outgrew her love of Curious George (I’m so sad!), now she only wants to watch Rio and How To Train Your Dragon. Last night we watched part of How To Train Your Dragon and she took our bearded dragon out of his cage to sit and watch the dragon movie with her! She makes such awesome connections between things sometimes, it still surprises us every time.

She’s also really figured how counting works, although she can only count to two by herself. Chris says it’s too early to peg her future career, but I’m pretty sure she’s going to be a really obsessive-compulsive accountant because the girl now counts EVERYTHING even when I don’t prompt her for it. She points to Chris and I and says “one-two!”, yep she has 2 parents. At dinner last night she counted “one-two!” glasses of wine. This child is so random!

 

Videos

A video from Christmas, Gabrielle and I compete on Dance Central 2 for the xBox Kinect:

Old videos (from 2 months ago) which I’m not sure I posted here before:

 

Chopsticks

Last night I made a spicy Asian chicken noodle soup, I served it in a bowl with chopsticks for us and in a plate (minus the spicy broth) with a fork for Gabrielle. Well of course she noticed we were eating with chopsticks so she got off her chair, walked to the drawer, pick up 2 chopsticks for herself, and ate the rest of her dinner with them! What an independent little girl!

 

Living room before & after

Before:

After:

 

Just what I needed

I gave up yoga during the fall because of the computer science class I started. Then I quit the class and sort of forgot to start yoga again.

I had been feeling quite gross and unhealthy lately with the stress of buying the house and the holidays (hello wine and cookies, I’m looking at you). Then suddenly this week I remembered “that thing I used to do, what’s it called, exercise?”. In that moment, I knew I had the start again ASAP because nothing in the world sounded better.

So yesterday I asked permission from Chris to get night “off” and went to yoga. It kicked my butt. And I loved it. Now I’m sore all over but haven’t felt so blissfully happy and at peace with myself in a long time.

In the spirit of the new year, note to self: Go to yoga weekly!

 

Christmas

Merry belated Christmas!

Yeah, I completely missed the boat on writing a heart-warming Christmas post like all other bloggers. I also didn’t take any pictures of our Christmas. Between the emails, the blogging, the picture taking… some days my phone feels like an extra job in and of itself and I just want some time off.

We did enjoy our 2-day Christmas break at my parents’ house, mostly the part about not doing any housework.

Oh, the housework. Where do I even start?!

We received our new gas cooking range yesterday and it looks fabulous! I was hesitating between the mac daddy of ranges (coming in at 2k) and a basic model (at $500) and finally decided to go for a happy medium. It is a 5 burners professional series something or other. I’m excited about the ridiculously high BTU output and Chris is excited about the 5th burner which is oval shaped for a griddle so he can cook pancakes like a pro. And you guys, the oven has a “pizza” button… A PIZZA BUTTON!!! None of that bake-4-2-5-start crap, no that’s way too many button pushes for pizza, we just need to push one button! Now that’s a feature we can both get excited about.

Anyway, yeah, housework. We primed the living room and part of the hallway last week. Yesterday Chris and I had the day off work but Gabrielle was in daycare, so Chris continued his work on reconstructing the closets in all 3 bedrooms while I painted the first coat of dark grey in the living room. I think everyone was afraid it would be too dark, admittedly I was a little bit worried too but it looks great! We’re really happy with the color. It’s dark, but not too dark… just sort of classy. I’ll wait until we have to 2 full layers on and the furniture back in place before showing off pictures.

In other news, 2012 is coming up. We’re hosting my family for new year’s weekend, a new tradition! I’ll be over here pretending not to freak out: I need to pack the fridge with food! Plan meals! Buy champagne! Clean the house! Wash bed sheets! Finish painting the living room! AHHH!