Here’s a small view of the cuteness I live with every day.  Hannah is adorable, there is no way around it.  Her hair is nice and curly when it’s wet, and it would stay that way, except I comb it and put a barrette in it.  Then, during the day, when she has pulled our her barrette, her curls are usually big waves, and they are ever so cute too.

This is right after her bath last night.  I was

trimming her toenails.

This is right after her nap this afternoon.

She was chasing this ball around.

In our yard there is a patch of grape hyacinths that

bloom each spring before we mow the grass.  Hannah

and Paul were enjoying them this evening.

Hannah picking flowers.

April 1:

Miriam asked what we were doing in our front yard with the wheelbarrow.  Well, at the moment, I was giving Paul & Hannah a ride up the to mailbox to get the mail (which I was then paging through).  Just before that, we were using the wheelbarrow to gather sticks from the back yard.  They were sticks that had blown down through the winter, plus sticks I had trimmed from one of our trees, and debris from last year’s iris blooms/leaves from a flower bed.  We piled them in the parking lot of our driveway, and later we will borrow and pickup truck from Gail to haul them away.  We still have to do the front yard before we are ready to borrow a truck.

Yesterday I also did some cooking.  I made most of a meal for a family from our church (I already had the spiced meatballs made and in the freezer)–jello salad, French bread, and brownies.  I also made marinated grilled chicken breasts and fried cut-up-in-cubes potatoes for our supper, along with the CA mixed vegetables.  I switched to the potato cubes rather than mashed potatoes because——starting on Monday, Hannah decided she was too big to be spoon-fed, and she wants to put the food in her mouth by herself with her fingers!  She bats us away if we try to spoon-feed her most of the time.  So, new methods of cooking and food prep, more food on the floor under the highchair–which means we get out the broom and dustpan after every meal.

So that’s pretty much what we did yesterday.  Now, I’ve finished exercising and need to take a shower before the kids wake up.

I’m thankful that this Sunday has been a much better one than last Sunday.  Paul and Hannah were excellent during the morning service, and did pretty well in the evening service as well.  These pictures were taken between lunch and their naps this afternoon.  They were romping on Paul’s mattress with Andrew and having the time of their lives.  I believe Andrew’s glasses suffered though!

They again took short afternoon naps–only a little over an hour.  Since they were awake early and it was a pretty afternoon, we left for the evening service early and let Paul play on the playground at the church until it was time to start.  He is always wanting to play there and this was a good opportunity for him.

This week has been pretty random.  The first couple days when it wasn’t rainy outside, Paul and Hannah and I went out as much as we could.  It helps them to run off some energy, they have fun, and it gets me out of my tunnel-vision rut that I can get into when I am inside.  Plus, when I am outside, I am not looking at all my piles of stuff that need attention inside–I am looking at all the stuff that needs attention outside!

We managed to get a few things done.  We cleaned off the outdoor table that was on the back porch and moved it outside.  Now we have a permanent table outside to eat our picnics on, we don’t have to set up and take down Paul’s little blue folding table each time.  We finished raking and bagging up the leaves.  We got the cornstalks moved from last fall.  (They were in piles in the yard, killing the grass.)  I scattered some grass seed where they were lying and scratched around with the garden rake to get a little dirt and dead matter over it.  Hopefully this rain will help it get started.  And, on the last morning we were outside, I managed to get one tree trimmed.  I just cut off the stuff that was hanging too low and would get in the way when mowing.  After that, we have stayed inside either due to the cold or the rain or both.

I also have spent a couple days uploading pictures to my Flickr site.  I had a lot of ’08s pictures to upload and all of ’09s so far.  They are all up there now (except the ones I just took off my camera).  I put them up there for two reasons.  One, so I can get prints or photobooks of some of them.  Two, so if our house ever burns down, the pictures are somewhere else so they won’t be lost for good.  Now, I know, Flickr may go defunct, or something, and then I wouldn’t have them either.  I’m just counting on that not happening at the same time our house burns down!

Yesterday, I broke out of our mold of shopping at Wal-Mart.  Thanks to Miriams blog about the great deals at Kroger and some links to internet coupons, I went to Kroger.  Boy, am I glad I did!  Yes, I may have saved some money, but even better, they have a bigger and better selection of diabetic friendly foods!  They have low-carb yogurt, the Kroger brand, in so many flavors!  The lowest carb yogurt at Wal-Mart, the Breyer’s Light, I have only been able to find in a few flavors, and usually they are just about sold out of those.  This was a wonderful find, and I think I brought home 5 different flavors.  Also, they have low-carb pasta!!  I had read an ad about Dreamfields pasta in a magazine, and then looked it up on the internet.  But, I just figured no stores around here carried it, and I never ordered any off the internet.  Dreamfields pasta has 5 grams of digestible carbs in 1/2 cup dry elbow pasta.   That is really low-carb!  And I love pasta.  I bought a box of the elbow pasta, and I cooked it as macaroni and cheese that very evening.  It was delicious!  Do you know how long it has been since I’ve eaten more than just a little bit of pasta?  Too long!  This is great!  You can bet I will be going back to Kroger from time to time to get some more.

The best thing about Kroger, if you ask Paul, is riding in the car carts.  They have these shopping carts with a plastic car built around them with a seat for two kids to ride in and two steering wheels.  It made Paul ever so happy to ride in one (he chose a yellow one), and Hannah enjoyed it too.  I think it is worth it to go there just to make them happy riding in the “yellow car”.  I really wished I had had my camera along.  I will have to take it next time.

Today was another random day.  This morning, Paul, Hannah, and I went to one of our church member’s houses and we stayed with the elderly gentleman who has Alzheimer’s while his wife enjoyed going to town on her own.   We were there from a little before 11:00 until sometime after 2:30.  This was the first time we had done this, and it went really well.  I couldn’t believe how the time crept by.  The kids were good, the gentleman was fine (though he was clearly impatient for his wife to return), but, what do you do?  There’s not much space to do a lot of kid-romping, we couldn’t go outside due to the weather, so we just played, and at times the kids would watch the video about a seal that his wife had started before she left.  At lunch time, we gave the gentleman his lunch, and we ate the lunch I had packed for us.  It all worked out well.

They live really close to my parents, so since nap time is 2:00 for my little ones, we just went down the road to their house and I had them take their naps at  my parents.  In the morning, on the way to our church members’ house, I left early enough to stop at Mom’s and set up Hannah’s pack and play.  That way, when she was all tired, I could just take her inside, take off her shoes, give her a drink of milk, and put her to bed.  It worked really well.  I drug a mattress off another bed so Paul could take a nap on a mattress on the floor.  Hannah slept from 3:00 until 6:00, and Paul slept from about 3:30 until 5:45.  I laid down and rested some too.  But, then I got up and cleaned up some dishes and stuff in Mom’s kitchen.  Most of the time, nobody else was home.  When I got up, Katie & Glen were there, and I got them to help clean up the kitchen until they left for a youth meeting at their church.  Right before we left, my dad came it.  But, other than that, we had the place to ourselves.  That made it nice and quiet for the naps.

Once we got home here, we microwaved leftovers and ate supper.  It was very late for supper, and we were hungry.  I hadn’t exactly planned on being gone that late, but that’s how it worked out.

I think I will post a few random pictures, and then I will go to bed.  It feels like it has been a big day, even though I feel like I haven’t gotten very much done in my own house.

Paul & Hannah getting ready to go somewhere.

I forget exactly where we were headed.

My mom came by last Friday evening.  After folding

my wash and loading my dishwasher, she read some

stories to Paul.

One evening, Paul decided he wanted to wear

all three of these hats.  And he wore them while

he helped me in the kitchen.

I just want to poke a note in here saying that I did get the beets and the peas planted this past week!  It was a major accomplishment to get things in the ground with the help of two small people.  They had fun for the most part.  Of course, this year it is Hannah who has to taste every rock and clod of dirt.  She’s a mess in the garden.  Poor girl, she couldn’t handle the planting though.  I tried planting peas with her out there, and I even covered them up as I went along.  She came right along with me and would put out her hand to get a pea seed (and eat it, I’m sure) and I would say, “No, Hannah”, and she would wail her heart out.  Then, she would reach out again, and I would again say, “No, Hannah”, and she would start on a fresh round of tears and crying.  After the first double row, we stopped, and I decided Paul and I would come out and plant them after she was down for her afternoon nap.  So, that’s what we did and spared Hannah more crying.  Andrew said she probably thought I was laying out candy and then not letting her have any.  It’s certainly what she acted like.

I gathered up the rocks out of the garden and put them in a bucket.  Well, Paul found them and unloaded them out of the bucket and right back into the garden!

This isn’t the garden, but she is cute!

Well, there is one thing that is simple about our Sundays–the meals.  I am so thankful that we have figured out pizza from the freezer works well for our Sunday lunches.  Whenever I make pizza, I make extra to put in the freezer.  It is all sliced and ready to put in the microwave.  I get the appropriate no. of slices out of the freezer on Sunday morning to thaw.  When we get home from church, usually Andrew is the one who puts it in the microwave.  Then, we can just eat and have only a few plates dirtied up.  It makes for a simple meal.

It was a gorgeous day outside today.  We weren’t outside much at all today though.  We had our morning and evening services, and naps in between.  Paul & Hannah didn’t sleep as long as they needed to, and they were quite the disturbance in our evening service.  Usually I am the one thinking “And why do we go through the exercise of going to church?” at the end of a Sunday.  This evening, Andrew did Hannah (which means, holding her while I spoon in her supper, and then taking care of her bathroom needs) and I took care of Paul (and his bathroom needs–he managed to have a giant accident in the middle of the service, wetting all layers of clothes.  Fortunately I had a spare pair of long pants in the diaper bag), and Andrew said that now he was thinking like me, “Just why do we do this?”  We agreed that at this stage of life we go to church because it is the right thing to do, not because it’s easy.  Are we the only ones who live through “Endurance Sundays”, or do other people just not talk about it on their blogs?  I can completely understand why all the other people with little kids in our church come to evening service just a few times a year.  It make a full Sunday!

Tomorrow is a new day, and I anticipate a good night of sleep and a brand new, wonderful, non-crabby (meaning me and the kids, not just the kids!) day tomorrow.

Mon. morning–I should add that most Sundays are not as trying as yesterday.  Hopefully they will continue to get less trying, and trying less often.

These are my menus for this week.   Some look like they are the same as last week’s meals.  That’s right!  We didn’t get them all in last week.  We ate some other stuff a few days, sampling some meat were considering buying, so I just carried over some of the meals into this week.  We can enjoy them one week as well as another!

Today was so warm and wonderful outside (around 70 degrees) that I had to shelve all desires to make bread and straighten up the house and just go outside with our wee bairns and help them have fun.  We even read Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy Town outside for our story time.  It’s a little late, so this post will be short on words and long on pictures.

Hannah on Sunday at the dinner table.

Paul eating an ice cream cone in a bowl–this was

while I was at a church ladies’ meeting last

evening.  Andrew was at home with Paul & Hannah.

Tomboy Hannah, hair flying everywhere,

playing outside and getting

filthy dirty.

We spent our time outside raking and bagging

leaves.  No, we are not in the southern hemi-

sphere, we’re just really late in addressing our leaves.

Paul helped rake and bag them.  He called the rake a

“raker” for a while, until I corrected him once.  Then

he called it a rake.

We had a really good mother-son talk while raking leaves.

He went on and on about how he liked the supermarket and

what all was there–naming all the things from the supermarket

page of the Richard Scarry book we had read this morning–fruit,

vegetables, meat, hamburger, and yogurt, “yummy yogurt”.

He was ceaselessly loquacious this afternoon, and I am

glad he likes to talk to me.

After naps, and then baths, Hannah & Paul played in

Paul’s room until it was time for supper.

I stepped into Paul’s room, and then immediately

stepped out to get the camera.  This is what he had

constructed (his critters and blankies piled in the

basket) and where he was perched.

Just another great photo!

Goodnight, folks!

Paul in a purple car in the basement of my parent’s house.

The last time I made pizza, Paul was helping with the dough, as usual.  I let him have one taste, and then I forbade him to have any more tastes.  He just pinched off little pieces of dough and put them on the pizza pan, and so on.  Every so often I had to remind him “no more tastes”.  After a little while, Paul said, “Paul like Mommy go downstairs”.  I asked him if he wanted me to go down in the basement so he could eat more tastes of dough.  He said, “Yeah”.  Is he one smart dude, or what!

Andrew helping make pizza (he put the last one

together while I was finally eating supper–everyone

else had already eaten).

Paul & Hannah with some critters.

I have been teaching Paul to say “I’m sorry” and to give Hannah a kiss whenever he bumps her, knocks her over, or whatever.  This afternoon, Hannah was with Andrew, standing, leaning, or something, and Paul bumped into her.  He said “Whoops! Paul smack Hannah.”  (Meaning he bumped into her.)  Then, he gave her a kiss and said, “Paul kiss Hannah.  Goodnight!”  It was so cute and so funny!  I guess he is so used to me saying “Goodnight” after I give him a kiss at night time that he must think that’s the appropriate thing to say after every kiss!

Wednesday of this week was a special day–Hannah’s first birthday.  Andrew helps to make a big deal out of it and treated our little Hannah like a queen.  She wasn’t feeling on top the world that day, and was on the crabby side.  But, we tried to make her feel as special as a 1-year-old with a cold can feel.

For starters, in the morning, Andrew took Hannah out for a little date.  He turned her car seat around so she would be forward-facing for the first time in the car.  Then, they drove down to the little Clover Hill Market, and he bought her a little snack-pack of M & M’s.  He fed several to her, and she came home with a chocolate face.

Fortunately for Paul, Hannah was generous and shared the M & M’s with him.  He really enjoyed Hannah coming home from her date and sharing the goodies with him!  (I wonder if it will be the same way in about 20 years!)

I had baked two 8″ round chocolate cakes the evening before.  On Wednesday morning, I managed to get them iced and decorated with a yellow duck.  Andrew and I decided our first birthday tradition would be a yellow duck cake.  It was also easy for me since I had saved the duck pattern from Paul’s cake last year.  (I did one cake for Hannah, and the other was to give away.)

We reused the duck candle from Paul’s birthday cake.  The candle was one of Paul’s presents from his Aunt Wendy.

Because we have Bible study in the evening on Wednesdays, we decided to celebrate at noon.  I remembered that on Paul’s first birthday we had one of his favorite foods–pizza.  Hannah likes pizza too (though her appetite was spoiled by the chocolate in the morning), so I pulled leftover pizza from the freezer for our special birthday lunch.  After lunch was the grand time–destruct-a-cake by Hannah Joy Vogan!  Andrew’s family had a tradition of letting the kid do whatever he wanted with the birthday cake on his birthday.  On Paul’s first birthday, he timidly poked a few fingers in it and then licked the icing off his fingers.  Well, Hannah had no reservations about clawing and pawing the cake like a lion digging a pit.

Y0u can probably tell that she seemed to be particularly inclined to wipe the icing off the cake and then smear it down the tablecloth cover (which was plastic!), and then smear great loads of it on both pant legs, and on the sides of her high chair.  Oh, the mess!  Finally, we took the cake away from her.  Then, it was time for her to sit on her potty, plus her clothes were fairly coated with icing.  So, I peeled off the pants and we sat her on her little potty to open her presents.  We gave her a big rubber ducky and a cloth book.  Oh, while we were eating lunch, the mail-lady brought a package from Aunt Wendy!  It was a Tomy toys egg carton with little eggs with peeps inside, and also a Gund monkey holding a banana.

Friday evening, we had Andrew’s parents over for supper, and they brought Hannah a big box of birthday presents, including  a doll and a little wagon,  a lantern, and some of the neatest books.  Paul has latched onto the “Big Hilda Book”,  which is a Richard Scarry’s book of Mother Goose Rhymes.  He loves it to death and it is his new bathroom book for the present.  Hannah likes the books that have holes in that she can poke her fingers through.  We used some of those in church today.

Let’s see…what can I say about Hannah for her first birthday post.  We love her!  That’s for sure.  She has a ready smile and a wonderful laugh when we tickle her, or give her lots of playful kisses on her cheeks.  She has figured out the blow-on-your-belly trick, and she will put her mouth down on the steps at the living room and blow to try to get the same sound.  She will do it against my leg and get that nice bubbly-blowing sound.  She really likes to do that.  She  imitates sounds.  If we say a word and repeat it to her several times, she tries to say it.  She can make a “woof” sound, and she seems like she tries to say “Jesus”.  She has the tiger growl down pat.  She has heard Paul making growling sounds for different animals.  Now, she will pick up an animal toy and make a growling sound.  She loves to play with Paul, and they spend a reasonable amount of time crawling around on the floor together, laughing and playing.  They also took a liking to digging out the trash can in my bedroom last week.  We are putting stop to that!

Hannah has four teeth, two on the top and two on the bottom.  Her teeth are a little of a surprise to me–the bottom ones are crooked and together make a V shape.  The two top ones have a large gap between them, such as a good 1/8 inch hole between them.  I don’t know if this is any indication of how her permanent teeth will be, but when I see inside her mouth, I see an orthodontist in her future.

Her favorite foods are Ham ‘n’ Green Beans and applesauce.  Those are her all-time favorites.  The Ham ‘n’ Green Beans is ground up.

Well, that’s about what I can think of for Hannah right now.  She’s our little princess, and I know she will soon be walking.  It’s scary for me to think how fast this first year of her life has passed.  It doesn’t seem possible.

I think she looks a little scared here!

By the way, she doesn’t yet use this walker without assistance!  This is just a still photo.