our little girl

I thought I would jot down some random facts about Ansley...for the records:

- this little girl is my eat anything kid. She just gobbled down avocado and cut up pieces of kiwi in this picture. I love my husband dearly but his picky-ness with food has produced an obsession in me to make sure I do not have picky children myself. So if the books say 10 month old babies can eat it...I give it to her. Besides the basic foods (carrots, peas, applesauce, etc.), this includes zucchini, spinach, watermelon, beans, legumes and cottage cheese. Amazingly she eats it all and honestly it kind of shocks me.

- she is very noisy lately, not so much baby talk but just "singing" as we like to call it. Every-once-in-a-while she will say a "ba-ba" and "ma-ma" and I swear it sounds like she says "hiiiii" when someone comes in the door. She likes to give us "high fives" and points to the light when we say light.

heads-up: This video might be a bit boring if you are not a grandma or auntie of Ansley because it is a bit long.

- this poor child has been given the nickname "chunka-munka" because her adorable, squeezable baby chub. Jude loves to say to her in his sweet baby talk voice that he uses when he talks to her, "hey, chunka-munka grilll"...that is not a typo, he says grill instead of girl.

- this little girl loves to flash her big toothy smile at anyone that will look her way and then quickly hide her face. She has turned into this little giggly, smiley kid and we have gotten a lot of comments lately on how happy she is. For a while we weren't so sure about her moody disposition (many times we called her high maintenance) but are glad to see this side of her coming out.

- I guess growing up at the beach tends to make kids fearless when it comes to water, so we have another developing little fish that doesn't seem to mind water even when a wave comes and knocks her over...don't worry we are supervising her.

- lately Ansley has gotten frustrated when she is trying to move something that just won't budge or if the boys are bugging her. She lets out this frustrated growl/scream. Very funny to watch such a little thing with such determination. Tonight I was watching her flip through one of her board books with little flip up pictures and she was trying to flip one of the pictures...the wrong way. So since it wasn't flipping up, she let out her growl and the next thing I knew she ripped it off. Guess I'll be taping that back on.

- she is at the point now where she is trying to take some steps but it usually ends up being about 2 and then she just falls forward...sometimes when we're there and sometimes when no one is around and she falls straight on her belly. She is one tough kid though and can take the tumbles without missing a beat. She usually just smiles at us and moves on. I have a feeling this busy little girl is not going to be one of those pretty-pretty princess type girls.

- Ansley has this little habit of pinching. Usually when I am holding her, she finds the skin on the back of my arm or the skin on my neck and pinches it with her little nails...not maliciously but more as a comfort thing (maybe?). Because of it, she gets her nails trimmed quite often.

Matthew study

As I was preparing for my Bible study for tomorrow night I read this quote:

"Apart from repentance we will all resist Jesus."

I talk to my children all day about repentance and truly being sorry, but then I don't examine my own heart and truly see my need for repentance. But that is what Jesus' message is "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is near." (Matthew 4:17) It's not about showing God my list of things that I do...but it's simply- repent out of a broken and contrite heart. Then the Holy Spirit can help me to bear fruit (Matthew 3:8) that brings glory to God.

Such a good reminder...how easily I forget the gospel message.

feeling the beat

After Ansley did this little "dance" move a few times, I realized it was right after I pushed the button on the toy that played the lullaby song. Not sure where she picked it up. Maybe it was from her rhythm challenged brothers...or maybe she just has some natural talent.

side comment: I didn't realize how weird I sounded when I talk "baby talk" to Ansley. At least she's a baby and doesn't seem to mind.

pretty in pink

crepes

Our small group was over last night for our fellowship/food gathering we have every other week. This week our theme was crepes...the choices were savory or sweet. Believe it or not I don't ever remember having crepes before...but let's just say I will definitely be eating them again. And Nutella...what an amazing chocolaty-nutty food.This was our crepe maker...so professional. He had a real crepe maker and all the tools, so he did all the work and we did all the eating.And we did have other guys at this gathering but for some reason they tend to shy away from the camera. So thanks to my honey for representing the other men there by giving this great smile...actually it's one of those fake "just hurry up and take my picture" smiles. But thanks anyway for taking one for the team.And these little munchkins got to enjoy a savory and sweet crepe before bedtime. As you can see by their faces they are big fans.

habits

I think I might patent this...thumb covers to help in kicking the habit of thumb sucking. Maybe I could call them thumb cozies.

Jude's habit has become pretty obsessive, so I felt I had to take drastic measures. Regular old band-aids weren't doing the trick and the bitter tasting polish you can paint on the nail didn't faze him either...he's my kid that will eat a lemon. So I had an idea when I saw these little kids gloves at Target at $1.27 for two pairs (not a high demand for gloves in Hawaii) and cut off the fingers...wa-la, the temptation to put his thumb in his mouth was impeded by a fuzzy covered thumb.

Cruel you say? Actually he thinks it's pretty cool and doesn't complain...although I'm tired of people asking "Jude is your thumb cold?".

pumpkin carving...a little late

A day late but we got our pumpkin carved.

race car drivers and a 'lil pumpkin

The happy energetic kids before we headed out for some game playing and candy eating fun. We again enjoyed a local churches fall harvest party before we met up with some friends for some trick-or-treating in their neighborhood....where we lost the 'lil pumpkins hat.The boys also wore this little pumpkin outfit...we definitely got our moneys worth for this costume. And to make sure she wasn't mistaken for a boy, I added the pink bow on top. This is what Ansley really felt about it. And the boys and their race car driver uniforms. I was sewing the belt a few minutes before we left. Next time I don't think I will cut it that close.

A great night of fun and way too much candy.

10 months old

time for a re-cap

Wow, has it really been that long since I posted? All that free time I used to have to do things, like blog, seems to have disappeared. I guess schooling a 1st grader and adding a 10 month old into the mix does that. So instead of making seperate posts for different things we have done this past week, I thought I would just give a "quick" run down. And this is the only picture I have taken this past week. So enjoy.

~So I'll start with last Friday when the fever bug hit Jude. He had a pretty high temp and I feared the H1N1, but thankfully it was a regular old virus and made a very active Jude into a very lethargic Jude. Now he is back to his normal digging in the dirt, riding his scooter, playing trains-self again. But before he recouped, he thought it would be nice to pass it along to his brother and sister as well. Thankfully it didn't hit them as hard and everyone is on the mend.

~I sewed 3 bears this last week for a friend of mine at church who wanted to give them to her nieces. So with that money I bought....brum-brum-brum (that's a drum roll)...a DEHYDRATOR. Okay maybe some of you aren't as excited as I am about this but I finally found one here on the island (way cheaper than trying to have one shipped here) at our local Japanese grocery store. I just made fruit leathers, dried apples and dried pineapple. I can't wait to make some sun-dried tomatoes, raisins and other dried fruits...maybe even jerky at some point. Oh the possibilities are endless. And the boys are very excited about the fruit leathers.

~Besides sewing the bears I am also working on the boys costumes for Halloween. They both wanted to be race car drivers. So those pictures will be coming up in a few days.

~Ethan and I went to see Sky Pirates at the local community college's planetarium. It was a cute little cartoon that talked about a few of the constellations and their names. It goes well with our study of Astronomy this year.

~I found a really cool website on crock pot meals. This lady actually has a cookbook out there but her blog features a different crock pot meal for every day- for an entire year. So far we've made yogurt and baked oatmeal...did you know you could bake things in your crock pot? I can't wait to try other recipes. It beats having to turn on an oven and heat up your house when it is already stinkin' hot in the house anyway.

~A friend of mine gave me the cookbook Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld a while ago but I finally got around to actually trying some of the recipes. It's easy for me because it uses a lot of fruit and veggie purees and since I have many purees for Ansley's baby food on hand I just pop a few out of the freezer and throw them in the recipes. So far we have had Applesauce muffins (with applesauce and butternut squash puree), Pink Pancakes (with beet puree), Mac-n-Cheese (with butternut squash puree) and brownies (with spinach and carrot puree). Kind of fun to have a little punch of extra vitamins thrown in. So far my kiddo's have eaten all of them.

~Jude had his first dentist appointment yesterday and he did so well. Both boys came out with perfect teeth...I always worry because there is no fluoride in the water here and they scare you about teeth decay, etc. But Jude was very excited about picking the cookie dough toothpaste to get his teeth "polished" with and I couldn't help but think how gross that sounded to have cookie dough flavor brushed all over my teeth. The amazing thing about our dentist is that he is on the 6th floor of a business building (well that's not the amazing thing) and when you look out the window while having your teeth worked on, you can see the ocean in the distance with its aqua blue water. Pretty amazing and beautiful!

~Our van is in the shop. It has a few "little" things needing to be fixed. Of course those "little" things always cost so much to fix. One of those little things was the outside sliding door handle. I went to open it a few days ago and it broke...not the handle itself breaking off but I seriously broke the handle in half! I guess it's all that lifting/holding a 20 pound baby that, I just didn't realize my own strength. Or maybe it's because the van is a 9 year old van that sits in the hot blazing Hawaiian sun every day and makes plastic very brittle. But I like to think it is actually my muscles that did all the damage.

Okay so nothing real profound or thoughtful but that is what we've been up to. Maybe when I have some real free time (you know the kind where you can have a complete thought without being interrupted?), I can jot down what I've been reading or studying. It's always neat to look back and see how God is trying to grow us as a family.

Off to do some schooling with Ethan.

girls

How can you tell if a house has an almost 10 month old little girl?

Your newly folded laundry ends up like this...I wasn't thinking when I set the pile on the chair within hands reach.

Notice how the criminal has left the scene?Yeah, I'm talking to you little missy. That cute little innocent face isn't going to work this time...okay maybe it is.