Frog Love and Socks

Yesterday afternoon as we were unpacking groceries, Scott saw a tree frog outside. He decided to bring it in for a few minutes to show the kids. As you can imagine, they were very excited. Adrien was very loud about the whole thing and scared the frog just a bit. Isabella, as always, was very calm and curious. She has always been this way around animals.




We watched the little guy jump from our living room all the way to the kitchen and almost under the refrigerator. Poor Isabella hardly got to see him at all because Adrien was all over the place. At one point Scott tried to let the kids touch him, Adrien freaked out and said "GROSS!" He is definitely my son.

Isabella really liked it though and I was able to get this shot of her attempting to touch him again.
Other than that though, we are laying low for Halloween. It is easy to do this year since the kids are so young. Scott and I don't think we are going to be so lucky next time. Adrien is picking up on holiday events very fast and is intensely curious why everyone is dressed weirdly. The weather has taken a turn for the wetter and we have been staying mostly in the house. We were able to get almost all of our wood split, chopped and stacked before it got too wet.

I have been very busy today. I started with casting on for my very first sock knitting. I am so excited! I have not only taught myself to knit, but I am now teaching myself how to knit a sock with five needles. Quite frankly, I am feeling pretty proud of myself right now.


Then I attempted to make a sour dough, which I unfortunately let get too warm during the rising process and killed my starter yeast. This really sucks because I can't try again for about a week as I used almost all of my starter in the dough and am now making another. I was really looking forward to some bread tonight...

Oh! That reminds me. I am doing a giveaway on Wednesday, November 5th (my birthday) of some new things I will be posting in my shop this month. Keep your eye open for some cool things coming up!

Walkin and talkin

Isabella has officially started walking. For the past few weeks it has been more of a chance occurrence, but the last few days she has been trying to walk everywhere she goes. It is very cute. So much different from how Adrien started, which was fast and furious. Isabella is much more deliberate and slow. She makes sure that she can put her feet down on a particular spot and if she does go fast it is pretty funny. She holds her hands up like she is going to fly and kind of just moves her feet as fast as she can. Usually this ends up with her face meeting the carpet, but that's how they learn, right?

Adrien has also hit a milestone of late. We are constantly hearing new words fly out of his mouth. The favorites of the week are "uh-OH" and "HELP." The other night Scott was holding him, trying to get him to calm down for bed time and he gave me this very sad look and said "help..." while reaching his arms out to me. Of course I didn't because he needed to go to sleep, but it was cute.


Other than that, we are continuing to chop wood and stack it. I am working on two essays, one for my application and one for a scholarship. Scott is looking to get some testing done pretty soon here so that he can get his Crane certifications and become a full fledged crane operator. OH! That reminds me, he passed and received his CDL license! What an achievement it was too. The truck he had been practicing on for two weeks, broke down two days before the test. So he had to take the test on a much larger vehicle than he was used to. He did well though.

Have a good day everyone and enjoy what's left of our sunshine!

firewood, fire

I mentioned last week that we received a large amount of wood, and this weekend was spent chopping our way through quite a bit of it. The wood was still in rounds from the tree and was sometimes a bit hard to get through, but we managed to do about half of it. And our wood pile continues to grow. This week we will go do some work for another person's house in exchange for a few more trees worth of wood.


On Sunday morning we had a small but significant scare. Our back porch caught on fire because I accidentally left ashes on a stair thinking I would get to them in a few minutes. We were awake, thank God at 4:30 that morning and the house was smokey. After checking the fire in the stove, we started to look around the house. As we made our way to the bathroom Scott saw flames shoot up off the stair outside. We dumped water on it and then filled up the tub to dump more water with buckets. We called the fire department, but it was out before they came. We were very lucky in that we are safe and there was hardly any damage at all. We do have to replace a stair, a few 2x4's and put siding back on the house but that's it. I don't think I have ever been that scared in my life, though. I did run to the neighbors house with Isabella, all the kids clothes and Adrien and Scott came just a few minutes later. We did learn a very, very valuable lesson and are so grateful to be safe and sound.

wonderful people

A few days ago, I was looking at our wood pile and thinking how low it got so fast. Yes, the one we just stacked is almost gone. It is amazing how fast wood goes when it is your only source of heat. I have been incredibly worried about the lack of wood here, it gets very, very cold in our house. With Scott in training for another month our outlook for getting wood seemed very bad.

On a whim, I decided to post our need in the wanted ads of Craigslist. A few days later (also known as yesterday) a man called us back. He is willing to trade us wood for some yard work and can give Scott some on the side business. I am so excited!! Today they brought over a load of wood. It is HUGE! We received, free of charge, about a half a cord of wood. Next week I am headed over to their house to do some yard work for the wife. She was injured recently and is unable to do it. After talking to her today, I found out she and her husband are from the California High Desert and moved to Washington the same time we did but under far worse circumstances. They were homeless and had no other option. They were unable to find work in California and now they own a business together and have a beautiful home after only two years. They saw our ad and felt like they "just had to help." We are so thankful and a lot warmer because of it. I can't wait to return the favor next week. I feel like maybe Grandma had a little something to do with it.

It really does go to show you that if you just put yourself out there more than likely someone else will understand and do what they can do to help.

Adrien's Birthday

Adrien had Mud Pie for his birthday instead of cake and it was definitely a hit. He especially loved the gummy worms. He did about 6 circles around the dinner table after eating a few bites

yea!

I finally figured out the pictures... And to start with here is Isabella on her birthday (Wednesday the 15th).

Doesn't she look angelic? This is before she started to eat my carrot instead of the cake.



Great Grandma Marcia stole a piece and Isabella gave her the look...



She did finally enjoy her cake the next day... and then had a bath.

sorry dady

Arggh.. my pictures aren't downloading, I am going to need Scott's help tomorrow.

Sorry

horrible

Today is turning out to be quite horrible. Adrien fell a few steps from the bottom on the stairs and has a weird bruise. Isabella got bit by a wasp that flew into the house and has been screaming ever since. I have not had a chance to shower, let alone even eat breakfast this morning. I am sitting upstairs listening to her cry while trying to go to sleep. I have done everything I can for her, still she just won't stop. The doctor's office said she should be fine. Adrien has just finished his lunch and is now watching a movie while I go up and down the stairs to check on Izzy.

This sucks. I had felt quite confident this morning about being alone all week and now everything is bad.

What's This?

Today, Scott had to go to the doctors to get his CDL (commercial driving license) physical taken care of. Since I had to run a few errands anyway, I figured I would take the kids and we would just wait for Scott. Two hours later, I had heard "What's this?" from Adrien so many times I wanted to scream and we didn't even go into the office with him! And it didn't stop there, all day long we have been hearing this, over and over again.

Then all of a sudden at dinner, he was standing in his chair and took a huge gulp of milk. He looked at Scott with surprise and said, "Nice! Ahhhh... Hmm Umm." It was pretty cute and definitely a relief from all the "what's."

We are actually very relieved he is beginning to commmunicate because his temper tantrums have decreased considerably. If he can't say what he wants and we don't ask him if he wants it he trys to point us in the right direction and say "this." Things have been much easier around here since his little speech bubble popped.

Five things I'm loving

I am taking a note from SouleMomma's blog here and showing you the things I am loving right now.







1. This is actually a picture from last week. We had a very warm day and had taken the kids to the park. This is one of my favorite parks in the area. Isabella was finally allowed to play on the structure. She really loves going upstairs lately and we figured this would be a very good place for it. She would crawl up the stairs and then go down the slide. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of her going down the slide. I was catching her instead.








2. A salamander or a newt... we weren't sure. Which is probably a sign that we should have paid more attention in biology growing up. We found this little guy under the recycling bin as we were cleaning up after a windy storm yesterday. We tried showing Adrien but he just kept asking us "What's that?" repeatedly.






3. Wood piles. This is more of a love hate relationship actually. I love to have the wood heat, I love the way a neatly stacked wood pile works, but I hate when they fall over. Scott and I had just moved our wood and built a new holder for it, and it broke the very next day. The screws we used were not strong enough. We have rebuilt and now Scott is on his way home with more wood.






4. Accidental forts. I was actually trying to get this blanket to dry today and threw it over Adrien's table in the living room. He hid in there and decided to take a nap. Very cute. I was able to coax him out for some lunch though.

5. My babies. Isabella's first birthday is coming up next week and I am excited to make her a little cupcake. Adrien is going to be two the week after. It is just so amazing to me that these two tiny people are in my life. They are hard work but fun.

**as a side note, I have a phone meeting with the admissions department for the Art Institute of Seattle. I am looking into their culinary program. They have night classes and I so want to go back to school next semester.

Where I'm At

Right now, I am sitting upstairs listening to the quiet that is my house sleeping. Isabella is down for a nap, Adrien and Scott are downstairs working on one. I am smelling dinner in the oven, a wonderful piece of meat... a roast I got at Safeway for $8.37 a few weeks ago. I froze it and have now defrosted it because Scott and I are in the mood for something tasty tonight. I put a rub of rosemary, pepper, salt, sage, garlic, garlic and oh.. garlic, with some "all purpose" seasoning on it. Then I stuffed a few more cloves of garlic and rosemary twigs on the inside just to make sure it tasted fantastic. Have I mentioned that I love garlic? I do. Scott is learning, but I want our kids to know what fantastic things you can do with it.

We went out in the "weather" today. Really it was only just windy, but the weather channel said it was supposed to storm quite badly this weekend. I think we got hit with it last night because our trash cans flew across the yard and hit the slides. We were feeling really thankful that they were empty this morning.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

...right?

First of all let me say I am sorry to my Dad and my Aunt Enes. I think they are the only two people who read this somewhat often. And, of course thank you as well for loving our little family so much that you want to read about us.

Then, let me say that I have been incredibly busy. We went to Dad's house in Oregon on September 19th and stayed for a few days. A very nice visit. It felt so good to see you Dad! I really have missed you and am so excited that you now live closer. I have one picture of that visit on my camera and the rest are on his, so he is going to email me when he can get a new camera cord. But I am not posting pictures today, my camera is downstairs and I am feeling a bit lazy.

Scott was laid off from his job due to a lack of work, he has been at home. I have been trying to keep us busy and out of each others hair with little projects and rearranging the house, doing yard work, etc. Unfortunately I do not think it's working as well as I'd hoped. I was also hoping that he would have been at training or back to work for someone by now. However, he is going to be in training on the 13th of this month through the 17th and then again the 20th through the 24th. His wonderful Grandmother Marcia is going to be here with us the second week to make sure I don't go crazy with just two kids to talk to. Thank God for her! I am really not looking forward to it, as I never am of course. This time it is going to be particularly hard on the kids because he has been home for a month with them now. I don't know how Adrien is going to handle it. As Dad and anyone else who has seen Adrien and Scott together can attest to, that kid is really, really attached. I think that after a few days he'll be fine, he has adjusted well in the past... excluding that awful fit on the street. I'm thinking that having the yard right outside is going to help this time.

I have a few recipes to share later in the week and of course pictures coming soon. We have been hitting up a few parks and doing a few things out and about amongst the fall cleaning. I am hoping to get out on a hike tomorrow before it gets too cold again. Have a good night everyone!