Sundays Rock

Celia: The ballerina

Celia took a ballet class this week. Other than being REALLY good at doing all the ballet positions and jumping, ballet class involved a lot of looking in the mirror (despite what the rest of the class was doing) and seeing how great her skirt looked (down on the hips and up on the chest).






Celia was also quite bossy. Though she didn't pay much attention to the teacher herself, when other people weren't paying attention, she was quick to tell them so. And I do have her, on video, telling her friend Sophie: "Don't ever to pick your nose!"

Sabrina: No! We're not ready!

She's not even nine months yet! She just learned to crawl! I don't know how to baby-proof! She pulled herself up for the first time on Wednesday night and has pulled herself up about ten times since then. She's moving way too fast. Now, when she wakes up, I always find her sitting up in her bed, trying to pull herself up. It makes putting her back to sleep nigh unto impossible.

And, of course, she's always a product placement for food.

This is How We Roll

** Disclaimer: That is not a magazine, but our credit report from the bank. That is also NOT a Cheeto on Sabrina's table... just the Gerber Graduate equivalent (not as bad, but almost... she eats EVERYTHING IN OUR HOUSE... we're running out of ideas!).

Celia: This week

Monday - Celia was dressing up, as usual, and came up with a pretty good "Cindy Lou Who" costume, we thought.



Wednesday - I got in the shower after Sabrina fell asleep and came out to find Celia sitting at the table finishing her oatmeal (that she started three hours before). It looked suspicious and there was some hair on the floor and on the table. Here was our conversation:
Me: Did you cut your hair?
Celia: It's okay, It's okay.
Me: Is this all the hair? (pointing to the little bits on the table and floor).
Celia: No, there's more. But it's okay, it's okay.
Me: Where is it?
Celia: I threw it away.
Sure enough, I found this giant wad in the garbage can. She really likes cutting yarn, and she had some yarn in her hair, so she decided she would cut it while it was in her hair. Lucky for her, she has some luscious locks that hide it all. You can't even tell!




Thursday - Celia was going downstairs and on her way, Tom said: "I'm going to tickle you first" and she said "okay!" very enthusiastically. Then she stood there, motionless while he tickled her. Then as she was going down the stairs she said: "Daddy tickled me Mommy, but I didn't laugh."

Today - Celia addressed Daddy's Father's Day card all by herself. I just told her what to write and she did it. I'm glad that her trademark is a million lines in her E rather than a heart above her i, which I'm pretty sure will happen for her in a few years. I like this better.



Oh, and she pointed the her A in "dad" and said: "That A is like a jellyfish!"

My Kids Don't Look Alike

My dear Uncle Noel

My Uncle Noel passed away on Sunday after a 3 month (plus maybe 2+ years) bout with Brain Cancer. I was looking through old pictures of Celia to compare to baby pictures of Sabrina (will post the match-ups tomorrow) and came across this one.



Noel lived in the basement of my parents' beach house while we lived upstairs for ten months before we moved to Alaska. He is the reason we were able to live unemployed out of college for ten months. He taught us how to revamp things found in thrift stores and that's how we made our money (we didn't make money in 10 months, but we didn't lose money either). Remember the dining room table Tom refinished? He taught us the best way to do all that. I'm glad we got to spend so much time with him before his diagnosis.

He worried that Celia wouldn't remember him when we moved away and she grew up. He came upstairs every morning and waved his hands frantically and said: "Hi baby!" But he told me his plan was to make a giant red dot that he would carry upstairs every morning so that somewhere in the back of her mind, she'd remember a big dot of a great uncle emerging from the basement. Though he never put it into action, the image stuck for me. And that's how I'll always imagine him.

So long Noel. Thanks for everything. And red dot or not, you'll always be remembered.

And ironically, this picture (doctored up by Noel himself) is one of my favorite pictures of him. Notice a giant dot?

Celia+Sabrina+Tom: Funnies

Sabrina: The Oompa-Loompa



Celia: A few common funny things she's been saying as of late:
- She always says: "oh, oh excuse me Ma'am" in a somewhat British accent if we're ever in her way.
- When she's trying to pick something (like a story to read before bedtime), she will say: "I like this one better than most" and often follow it with some mumbly argument: "I like this one better than most but... mumble mumble mumble."

Tom: As a post-script to the last post, we noticed an unusual cereal box in Tom's childhood cupboard. Hot buttered Cheerios? Sound good?

Look-alikes?

So, do you think Sabrina looks like her dad? Because that seems to be the consensus.

Memorial Day Tuesday

Tom gets every other Monday off from work. Because of Memorial Day, he got Tuesday off too. So on "Memorial Day Tuesday" we took a fabulous family bike ride around town on some awesome bike trails. We ended up at Alaska Wild Berry Products (a candy factory and "park").

Celia showed off her fashion statement with the park's giant stone Inuksuk man (look familiar from the Vancouver Olympics?... very similar native communities as you can imagine) and again in front of the World's Largest Chocolate Fall. Celia and Sabrina met a bear, we had a picnic, and we saw some reindeer. Overall, a fabulous way to spend "Memorial Day Tuesday."

Sabrina: The Hippie Crawls!

Yes, that's my hippie baby in nothing but her tie-dye tank and cloth diaper (she's sporting a fever of 102 degrees today). She may be sick, but she just figured out those knees of hers this morning and I haven't seen her this happy in a while. Now she can get to anything she wants!

Weekend plans: baby-proofing. And making a freezer full of baby food. We can't seem to make enough to feed this ravenous baby.

If Tom were to brag...

He might have shown you pictures of this dining room table he refinished. Since I usually do the bragging around here (for both of us), I feel he may have gotten shafted on this one. He worked on it all last summer and finished literally 24 hours before Sabrina was born (she was a nice girl to come two weeks early and exactly a day after we checked off our "to-do" list). Since it's been 8 months since the table was finished, I thought I'd brag for Tom. Luckily, Celia staged Jessie and Bullseye before she took a nap.

This original 1950s beauty was purchased on ebay for cheap in 2009 (with 6 fabulously Mod chairs that are Tom's project for this summer) and came in pretty bad shape. Many nights of sanding and polishing and polyeurathaning (now a word) later and we now have what we will claim as our best souvenir of "The Great Recession" (because when prices bottomed out, we got this set that's worth well over $1000 for much, much less than that).

By the way, it can comfortably fit 12 (the other drop leaf isn't even up in the above pictures) and fold down to fit 4. Isn't this the coolest table you've ever seen? (Celia stood in front of it and said: "Hey, are you taking a picture of me too?" and this is the face I get when I tell her to laugh for the picture):

Celia: Underwear Pants

Celia came upstairs all dressed this morning and said "Look! I'm wearing underwear pants! (Long johns)" under her Spandex shorts, of course. "I'm wearing short pants, too, so you can see my underwear pants!"

When I asked her just now if I could take her picture, she said: "Yeah, I'm pretty. Woo hoo!"