oops missed January.

My friend Saralynn was pregnant last month and graciously allowed me to take her picture for some maternity picture practice. We headed off to the library here in town and found some nice light. I need some more pregnant friends though to practice on! I was definitely happier with these than some of my previous attempts, but I certainly am learning more each and every time! And since I’ve been so slow to post, Saralynn had her new lovely baby Eric last Tuesday and I can’t wait to take some fun pictures of him and their whole darling family too.

We had lots of snow, lots of shoveling, and lots of sledding. Celia can happily go by herself now down the hill but had trouble getting up it yet. This week when we went again just the three of us Josie graciously helped her sister up the hill and carried the sled. Much better than last year with me lugging all three up the hill!

Here’s Celia on the slow pile in back of the house.

Josie on the snow pile in front of the house, she can crawl all the way to the windows and the porch and reach in. It’s been a few years since we’ve had this much snow.

And you can also get a sense of how high the snow was without shoveling or drifts, it was up to their wasit, as cut through by the snow thrower.

Walking home from sledding, cars aren’t allowed out on the roads yet so it was easy getting around where it was plowed.

And for the finale of December, here in February, we went to Pennsylvania to see my dad’s side of the family. Celia unfortunately got sick and on the trip down was actually asking to get back into her car seat and rest which is very unlike her, but very convenient for having an easy trip for the rest of us. Christmas Eve she was unfortunately running a low fever, but we gave her some medicine and tried to take it easy with her as we celebrated at my cousins Sue and Jeff house and went to church. The girls were great at church and even went up to the front to hear the children’s part of the story. Zeke, Sue and Jeff’s gigantic dog was a big attraction for the girls although they were wary at first and all had to learn how to get along with each other.

We all enjoyed some yummy food, and exchanging gifts. We got the girls home a bit earlier this year and they crashed into sleepiness quickly and we joined them soon too. We couldn’t fit all the presents with us in the car for Christmas morning so we left our own presents at home and just exchanged with the Graybills that morning so it was a short and sweet time to appreciate our gifts one at a time.

Look how nicely those two hold up their stockings and pose! Maybe in 15 years I’ll get that too, instead I got this:

But Josie was feeling magnanimous and posed for me in front of the big glass windows.

After presents we had a delicious Christmas brunch.

And we otherwise had a lot of time to hang out, visit, play with our new presents and eat cookies for the rest of the day and the next. We had snow on Christmas Eve and so it was a pretty white Christmas. We also had another storm the following day which prevented us from doing as much visiting as we might have done with other people, but Josie and I got to build a snowman. The kids next door had been out sledding and made some ‘sleigh tracks’ down the backyard and there actually are some deer around too behind the house so we had some cool tracks in the snow for a Christmas morning story.

We spent a lot of time, grownups included, playing with the magnatiles we had brought with us. They built a tower up to the ceiling after going through many different design options to get enough stability and reach. Todd asked why he didn’t get these toys for Christmas.

All too soon it was time to go home and we had a pretty good trip home again, although my mom flew and it took her as long to get home as it did us because of delayed flights. The girls were quite patient and enjoyed the toys and the attempts of me and my dad to entertain them.

Once we had gotten home, we took a day to recover and then had our third Christmas present opening at our house again under the tree. This is the big stash of loot Josie had definitely been waiting for. Somehow it does all fit into the house though.

Jordi and I got some wonderful new warm blankets that are huge for our bed which we’ve been really enjoying. Plus new luggage for our fairly frequent trips. The girls got way too many things and we’ve been doing a lot of art with the supplies we got as well. But of course, they also just played in the giant boxes we got too.

My dad’s side of the family, partially blinded by the sun.

Things seemed to be going well with sledding. All aboard!

Yay sledding!

uh oh, just a bit of snow. Poor Celia.

Shake it off kids!

Good job ducking behind Celia, Josie!

Oops. Jordi and a bunch of feet sled down the hill.

From a few days ago, we had some vociferous reading in the morning light.

This year we got more into ice skating, or rather Josie and Celia have, I’m sidelined with my sprained ankle and other physical issues currently. We’d take them to free skate and Josie would hang on Jordi or my dad and Celia would get the other one and they’d have aching backs by the end. But hanging out at the rink you can clearly see that other kids Josie’s size could skate by themselves and Josie’s a pretty physically capable girl so we decided this was a mental ‘hanging on’ thing. Here’s a pic of her hanging onto the wall for a rare time she let go of someone.

Right after this photo, I said ‘get off the wall!’ and she did, she actually skated herself for a few moments, but that was it. She had gotten her new ice skates for Hanukkah this year and they were fitting nicely. I looked around online and found a short set of 3 skating lessons to get Josie a quick start lesson. She was interested and agreed to them but the first class was later in the day after we had already gone skating in the morning. And of course in real ice skating classes, no one is there holding your hands, there’s only one teacher and a bunch of kids. But out she went, falling and falling, and falling again. I could see how upset she was and halfway through she came out for a hug before she went back in for more. It was a rough class and she was really really tired. She did not want to go back again, but by the end of the class they had her skate the whole width of the rink without falling even once! We had french fries afterwards to cheer her success.

The following weekend we did free skate the day before the lesson. She was able to only hold on with one hand to her helpers and even took off skating by herself at times. She was again dreading the class, but I made her go. She picked up more skills, had fewer falls and gained more confidence.

The last class she also didn’t want it to be Sunday again. This class she fell maybe 4 times total, and didn’t fall even when other kids who had fallen ran into her. She was going forwards, starting to glide and even made the effort to go backwards. After class we again had some french fries and she told me she wanted to go to one more class. Sadly the session was now over and the other sessions are 9 weeks long. This is the first class we’ve ever done on the weekend and we found it tough on the routine as it took over the whole afternoon, so we won’t be back for lessons, but she should be zipping around the local rink now that she can go on her own! It was a big challenge but she really rose to the occasion.

Celia also joined us for the free skates and she is determined to get moving on her own. She’ll let go and try it herself and isn’t too bothered by falling down, even though she refuses to wear mittens. She had been using rentals, and still wanted to be carried some of the time, so I bought her some double runners that attach to her boots and she loved those. She could walk across the ice, balance by herself, and be out there with the big people in general. She likes watching the silly flirty teenagers. I also picked up a pair of used real skates for her which she hasn’t tried out yet, but they’ll fit this year and next so we’ll see what she thinks of them.

Today was Friday, Josie went to school, Celia and I got to spend some time with just the two of us. Lately Celia has been telling me, and then later Josie, how much she misses Josie every time she goes to school. She says ‘Josie get’s lost at school’. I brought along my camera for our morning at the library to entertain myself. I’ll have to bring it into school next time and get some shots of Josie in there. We started off with a short photoshoot in the library staircase.

Then we moved down to the basement where the kids library is and she immediately ran for the water fountain. Once she got her fill, or perhaps I had mine, I brought her over to the books and she wanted toys instead. I brought her one set of circus toys and she declared that it was no good. We traded it in for the ‘farm’ play set and then she was happy. I took the opportunity to work on my lifestyle images which I don’t typically take. So I was the looney toon mom laying on the floor photographing my kid in public playing with some little toys. She made up a story with them. The little dog was sad. He was driving around in the tractor. He went on a long trip and then he felt better. After we played for a while, we had to jet to a doctors appointment for me, where I got some nice antibiotics because I’ve been coughing and sneezing for several weeks now. After the doc we went back to pick up Josie and brought us all home for lunch.

Celia is now a quintessential two year old. From the “I can do it myself” to the “I want A”, give her A, “NOOOOO I DONT WANT A!!!!”. She’s a non-stop talking and moving machine. She’s a big girl now and she wants to do it herself and her own way. She rejects her high chair, and her bibs mostly. She has fallen to the floor a few times off the regular chairs but she seems to be getting the hang of it a bit better. She believes she can do anything that Josie can do and she’ll go right for it. She also reminds me on an almost daily basis that she’s getting bigger and going to be tall like me. It’s nice that someone thinks of me as tall. She loves her toys, loves the cats, loves Josie and all around has big big feelings and emotions towards everything.

She’s very energetic and always wants to keep up. We got her a pair of double blade clamp-on ice skates and she’s been enjoying chasing after everyone at the ice skating rink  and being able to do it herself. She rides her balance bike like a pro, and with the warm winter we’ve had we have had a few chances to use it recently. She loves her gymnastics class and insists on doing more challenging moves that she watches Josie do at her class, like wall hand-stands and rolls on the balance beam.

She likes to take off her clothes, put on her clothes and now uses the toilet when she feels like it. Although she has not stopped using her diaper in any way shape or form, nor does she keep underwear dry when she wears it, so we’re not holding our breath for this to happen particularly soon.

Other than gymnastics she spends her days with me doing the things we have to do, picking up and dropping off Josie, shopping for food and whatever else we happen to need. We play, we read and she likes to snuggle. She’s still taking about an hour nap most days, usually missing a day or two a week when she just won’t fall asleep. She’s gotten a lot pickier with eating and won’t eat eggs anymore or a number of other foods that she used to inhale. Often times she’ll change her mind on things from day to day which is particularly frustrating for this short order chef.

Her ability to communicate is such a joy though, she is quite polite and thoughtful about asking for things and permission. She’s not always one to listen to the answer though, that still requires quite a bit of physical reinforcement of my words. She’s very loud and can’t control her volume yet although she can whisper at times but it’s more of a fluke.

She loves to do self-directed art, she has no interest in what I might have had planned. She just prefers to have a pile of supplies and generally use lots of glue, glitter if available. She will try to copy Josie some, but she draws a lot of straight lines and some circles. The colors aren’t totally mushed together anymore either. She’s just started to get into library storytime and sing-a-longs which she hasn’t had as much exposure to thus far. This winter I’m definitely trying to take advantage of the free opportunities like that available to us for some easy out of the house enrichment.

She’s still sleeping right next to me, can’t convince her yet to go move out next to Josie. She loves her early morning cuddles and hopefully once her teeth are finished coming in (only 1.5 left to go!) she’ll sleep through the night more reliably. She doesn’t need anything at night, but sometimes she comes to cuddle and isn’t very subtle and wakes me up.

Celia loves to cook, measure, scoop and pour. Sand and snow are big hits right now for those activities and she’ll always come running to see what I’m doing in the kitchen.

She has recently learned her colors, has the shapes down pat and can count to twenty only missing a number or two. She’ll go higher as well but they get sketchier. I’m going to start working on letter identification with her soon.

• Size/weight: 3T, dunno about the rest right now, sorry
• Favorite foods: breastmilk, sour cream, avocado, cheese
• Favorite toy: anything with lots of parts to leave all over the house and play pretend with
• Favorite book: The umbrella, Maisy
• Favorite activity: riding her bike, playing with Josie
• Sleeping: bedtime ~8; one nap 1 hr at 1:30; gets up between 6 and 7
• New skill: proclaiming her awesomeness
• Teeth: at least 18 and more coming
• Vocalizations: explaining her feelings and problems, loudly