Semi-Shamrocks and an Ah Ha.

I just had to share these. Don't they look like little semi-Shamrocks?

They're actually just my other garden seedlings coming up, but I rejoice over them even more than I would an actual four leaf clover (which I HAVE found before, by the way).

Another reason I absolutely had to share these: I've been playing more and more with my camera and had an especially fun "ah HA" moment this afternoon while I was talking to my sister-in-law Anne about some pictures I wasn't terribly happy with. As we were on the phone I grabbed my 20D, made the changes we were talking of, and ran over to my little bright green, semi-shamrock-sort-of-look-alike little baby veggies and had them pose for a few frames. Ah HA! Eureka. It worked. :) And I had to share.

St. Patrick's Day: Eatin' Good

To celebrate the bit o' Irish that winds its way happily through my family's and my own lineage, I spent the past couple days making an Irish feast, if not truly authentic, still full of fun and festivity.

Irish Soda Bread. Mmmmmm.

Irish Champ - this is seriously good stuff.


Add a good helping of Beef and Irish Stout stew and you're in business.


That's good lookin' dinner.



And for dessert, Pioneer Woman's Apple Dumplings. These are deadly delicious.

My family heartily enjoyed our Irish-American meal! Leftovers ensure the coming days will continue to see us happily rejoicing in this fun time of year.

A Preview of Good Things to Come...

Friends

Siennalee loves her friends. Especially friends who have moveable heads. Take Pink Giraffe, for example. They have many heart to hearts and share many snacks.
I secretly believe this is because Sienna knows Pink Giraffe is listening to her.

He always pays attention to whatever is important to her.


He's also quite affectionate.

He certainly seems to enjoy her wet smooches.

And Pink Giraffe is by nature quite a curious pink creature.

He hangs out and waits until she's done with whatever business is important at the moment.

He's confident she'll tell him all about her newest discoveries in due time. (Note how he's attentively listening to her explain whatever it is that she and Daddy are reading on the 'puter.)

Here they are preparing for an adventure.


He's telling her something in this shot. (Probably that he prefers to ride in front - why should Orange One Baby always get to ride in the front?) There are two ways you can tell that Pink Giraffe is talking to Siennalee: 1st, her mouth is open and her eyebrows are up, indicating a high pitched voice is needed for whatever animal is talking at the moment, and 2nd, Pink Giraffe's head is moving (that's the big giveaway).


And they're off!

(Note the other friends just lying around. Are they sleeping? Are they playing dead? If only they talked to the adults. We'd love to know.)

The cart has stopped for a quick bite. Here you meet Orange One Baby. She seems to be the regular favorite and always gets to ride in the front of the cart. Orange One Baby is a castoff of Isabella's from long ago when Sienna was first noticing baby dolls. We think Orange One Baby got her name from when Siennalee was first learning to recognize colors and orange was her first favorite color to pick out. Orange One Baby has an orange-ish head, so... there you go.


This is Moo. Siennalee has had him since she was itty bitty. He was a baby shower gift from Alicia. You can't see his face here, because he's looking at Siennalee, but rest assured he is very, very cute. (We're not positive he's a boy, but that seems to be the pronoun regularly used for him, so until somebody gets up the nerve to do a more thorough investigation, Moo is a "he.") Moo's currently the bedtime baby that regularly accompanies Siennalee to bedtimes. (I secretly believe he keeps her awake at times. But that's a pink boy cow for you.)

This camera and I are still getting to know each other. I also have a variety of factors warring against me in this photo sequence: Low light, a toddler who's faster than the camera lens - you get my drift.

But blur or no blur, you can see Moo is quite beloved.

And here's MY favorite little friend to squeeze and smooch.

Thankfulness

This is my husband Jason. We celebrate being married 6 years this year. He's currently the swing shift manager at our local window and door manufacturer and often works 10 hour days, sometimes even longer. He's also a Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy Reserves and spends one weekend a month, two weeks a year, and countless evening hours devoting himself to them.
He's my baby's daddy, my greatest love, and one of the best men I've ever known.

He works hard and plays even harder. He loves football and hopes to assistant coach one day. He is thoughtful, courageous, and painfully sincere. Loves the outdoors, all sports, eating my latest culinary endeavors, playing with our daughter, and best of all, he loves ME.

I really do think I'm the luckiest girl in the world.

Cuteness

Our world is quite a magical place these days. Below are just a few favorite phrases and glimpses into our precious moments.


"I'm okay! I'm okay!" When she's climbing or playing and starts to feel a little insecure, or dramatic.

"Where aaaare me?" When she's hiding.

"Oooo, it 'pooky down dere... it 'cared me." This is fairly new. We were walking down the stairs and she looked over and could see underneath the desk through the stair railing - it was dark under there and, apparently, spooky.

"He's a good buddy." This is often used to talk about Racer, and occasionally her Moo (stuffed cow).

"What dat noise?" Usually when she hears a strange vehicle or noise she can't place.

"What you got in your mowf?" She has a very good nose and can tell when one has sneaked a treat she hasn't gotten a bite of.

"Pop it!!" She loves when I "pop" my gum - her little mouth opens wide in delight and she squeals, "Pop it again!"

"Hi, I'm Moo!" All her stuffed animals and babies have names and voices of their own (which she supplies, of course). Moo is a stuffed cow and has a very deep voice (which sounds, oddly enough, like a gravelly two year old girlie voice). Most of her other babies have very high voices and are barely intelligible. (Jason and I are required to say "Good morning" and give kisses to whichever babies might be in Siennalee's crib each morning.)

Elaborate dramas and adventures unfold each day in my living room. Siennalee is a very active little girl, but will spend quite a bit of her time playing independently with her Little People (not from the TLC reality show) and then will move to caring for her babies and stuffed animals. They go on walks and hit Costco quite often.

She also loves to "read." She will sit in our laps for countless books and then will take several and go off on her own to "read."

Potty training so far has been a bust. I have high hopes, but continue to move slowly in my encouragement towards the constant use of the "big girl potty." She's just not ready.

She also loves babies. She will watch them motionlessly but does not try to touch yet. She'll talk about them later, "He a wittle baby. He cry."

Her pronouns are starting to be employed more and more. It's about a 50/50 chance if she gets them right. I'm surprised how much she'll use the pronoun "he" or "him" since we don't have too many "he's" in our world right now, except Daddy and Uncles.

Siennalee is very empathetic. She's often distressed when her cousins are upset or crying (even when she is the perpetrator) and will offer a hug and kiss when she sees tears. A couple months back, she would pause in her play and come close to me to consider my face for a moment before asking, worriedly, "You crying?" I got lots of toddler hugs and pats. She knew what I needed.

It's such a marvelous blessing to watch her grow and begin to unfold as a little person.

Sweet Mornings

"Good morning, Siennalee!" I come into the room and rush right over to hug the little person standing in her crib, looking out the window by holding the curtain back gingerly.

I begin turning off the nightlight and noisemaker, listening to her jabber about the trash can outside. "Good morning!" I prompt again.

"Good morning, Mommie!" She smiles back at me.

"Did you have good dreams last night?" I ask her, getting her clothes out of the drawer.

"Yes, I had good dweams."

"What did you dream about?" Now we're changing diaper and getting her dressed. This is a favorite question of mine which, until today, has never been answered directly.

"Ummmm... I dweam about Moo. And I dweam about Sippy. And I dweam about Bee-yar..." These are all her bedmates, along with her blankets.

Such a sweet start to our morning.

Mending

This week marks nearly a month since we lost our baby. It's been a rather difficult month for me. I continue to heal and get stronger, and as I do I try to push myself out to regain some of the ground that feels like it was lost in grief. I've leaned a lot on family and friends, trusting them to turn a blind eye to any shortness or strangeness on my part, and they've made me feel very safe and loved and normal. And in those moments of brokenness which continue to surface every so often, I learn a new level of trusting on God instead of myself.

Indeed, we felt within ourselves we had received the [very] sentence of death, but that was to keep us from trusting in and depending on ourselves instead of on God Who raises the dead.

[For it is He] Who rescued and saved us from such a perilous death, and He will still rescue and save us; in and on Him we have set our hope (our joyful and confident expectation) that He will again deliver us [from danger and destruction and draw us to Himself]...

II Corinthians 1:9,10

For when I finally come to the end of myself; my own ability to see, understand, hang on and go on, He is there.

Broken

Jason and I would like to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers for our little family as of late.

As many already know, we lost our little 8 week old baby last week. I've begun to write more than this, but as of yet, my thoughts are still fairly emotional and disjointed, and I fear trying to get out an entire post would prove yet quite hard for me to write and perhaps harder still to read. I hope to be back very soon to once again post pictures and stories, but for now I'm taking some time to mend and to rest in the grace that God is proving faithful to provide. Our plumb-line right now is: Jason and I are confident that we will rejoice with our little child one day in Heaven, and until that time, we will continue to see the goodness of God here.

Thanks again for all the notes and phone calls. We're blessed to have you all in our lives.

Jessica and Jason

Visiting Santa Claus!

Anne and I took the little girls to visit Santa Claus last Wednesday. Santa was surprisingly un-busy when we found him and we got to go right up and see him!

Isabella did quite well; she went right up and sat on his knee. Siennalee, however, was a little more suspicious. Why should she sit on this stranger's lap? Gracey broke into messy tears at the sight of Santa's ferocious beard and belly full of jelly.

Santa's helpers wanted Anne and me to sit with the girls, which we tried not to do, as the effect is just not as cute, but alas, in the end we had to give in, or just have one girlie in the picture. The result is cute enough, I suppose, as Anne and I are not too hard on the eyes, but I think we still would've preferred a picture with just Santa and the girls.



And since it's our absolute, timeless favorite, here's last year's visit with Old Saint Nick:

Stair-y Moments

Siennalee was being awfully quiet down by the stairs the other day. She's not supposed to go upstairs by herself, so I was obliged to investigate. Here's what I found:


She had carefully arranged all her babies (along with their toys!) on each step and was talking with them very quietly. Probably telling them how they're not supposed to go up the stairs by themselves.

I got a few cute pictures and went back in the living room. After more suspiciously quiet minutes passed, I investigated again.

Here you'll see that she's moved each baby about four steps higher. And what was really funny about this one, which I don't know that you can see in the picture, is how she has a "toy" for each baby positioned in front of them:

I just love how their little minds work.

Of course, after this picture was taken, we had to move the party off the stairs and back into the living room. But it sure was fun while it lasted!

A Nice Day for a Walk. And a Lesson or Two.

The weather's been gorgeous today! Siennalee and I took full advantage of it and went down to the park, played for quite a while, and then walked to the mailboxes.

This was the first time we've walked so much without me putting her in a stroller, so it was pretty neat. She's still learning her walking "boundaries" - staying on the sidewalk, not running too far ahead of mommie, etc.

On the way back she started to play a game where she won't come with me (and runs away when I go to grab her hand), so a couple houses away from home, I stopped chasing her and just kept walking.

Slowly, resolutely, I marched on, knowing that at some point she has to understand that she needs to make the choice to follow the wiser person who knows the way, or she could find herself lost, alone and unprotected.

She stood there, rooted to the ground, and stared open-mouthed as I got farther and farther away. Once she started following slowly, I turned around to walk with her, and she turned and ran back the opposite direction. I wheeled around and resumed walking home. She followed.

Heart beating madly, mind calculating how far and fast I'd have to run to snatch her up if danger came racing up the road, I went into the house and peeked my head out the door. She'd followed me and now stood at end of the driveway, looking at the house but not seeing me peeking out the door.

I saw her little mouth mutely form the word "Mah-meee" and ZOOM! I flew out to get her! She wrapped her little arms around my neck and asked, "What you doin' Mommie?"

Consequences are hard to learn; this I've known for years. What is slowly being revealed to me now, is how hard they are to teach.

Happy Birthday Pancakies

Catch Up Post - September 26, 2008


Siennalee's 2nd birthday was on a Friday and Jason was traveling home from 10 days' AT in Georgia with the Navy Reserves. Since Daddy wasn't yet back with us and the next day, Saturday, would be her birthday party, Sienna and I had a sweetly quiet birthday breakfast on her special day.

Birthday pancakes were 'specially made for the birthday girl, by the birthday mommie.

She loves pancakes!


She wasn't too impressed with the candles though... kept informing me, alarmed, that they were "hot!" I assisted in blowing them out, but here you see she's still not to crazy about them befouling her "pancakies."

Little bit better once Mommie helped pick these pesky candles out...


"Take it, Mommie!"

Heard in Our Little World Today:

"Oh Mommie, your hair is gor-jus," I'd just come into her bedroom this morning with a wet ponytail twisted into a bun, "I want to touch it," I went over to the crib and got her out, she put out a hand to the nape of my neck and withdrew it quickly, "It's really wet."

***

In the car, on our way to ladies' group: "We going go to church? And make new friends? Play with little boys? Play with friends..."

***

"Rock, rock! Rock, rock, Mommie! I crying!" This was actually in church nursery as I was trying to leave for ladies' group and she was to stay there with the other kids; she'd spied the rocking chairs behind us and thought some time in those would do just the trick.

***

"There's a book hiding in there; I want to get it out. It's really tight in there. Get it outta there, Mommie" She was fishing in the over-filled basket of books that lives beneath our coffee table.

***

As I'm typing this new post:

"Don't touch anything. That's a no no. Don't touch that, ookaaaay? Here's your box, and here's your blanket, and here's your bottle, and here's your... it's okay... don't touch anything, that's a no no, 'kaaay? 'Kaaay?" She's settling her babies in her grocery cart and instructing them on proper cart behaviour. I'm wiping tears from my eyes. LOL!

***

Jason's 33rd Bday

September 7, 2008 - Catch Up Post

We had a small family party to celebrate Jason's big 33rd birthday.

Here's a menagerie of shots of our partying fam:

And Siennalee managed to get in some one-on-one time with family:

And here Sienna has managed to talk Uncle Mike into her tent.
This is no mean feat, just ask my inlaws!

Jason's awesome parents (who live in Pennsylvania) joined us via Skype (which was, unfortunately, a bit patchy-er than usual due to some irritating computer issues)

We grilled some marinated pork loin for lunch and had a couple favorite sides.

Jason's requested dessert was Costco's All American Chocolate Cake.
I added 33 candles to his birthday slice.

Lighting this bad boy was no mean feat; Jason's sister Cheri assisted me. She was also close by so as to douse me with water in the likely event I became a fireball while attempting to light and deliver the birthday boy's cake.

Happy birthday, Jason!
Your two girls simply adore you.