Mushrooms and Mustaches

Titus was sitting on the counter while I was making pizza the other night. I had some mushrooms out to put on the adult portion of the pizza. Here's what I heard.
"Here Isabele. This is a mustache and it is really good." (Titus was leaning over the counter handing a mushroom to Isabele).

I said, "Titus, what is that?"
"A mustache".
Me, "Oh, Okay."

So, in Titus' world Marshmallows are mushrooms and Mushrooms are mustaches. Maybe mustaches are marshmallows?

Christmas 2009

Tealogs for breakfast.

Brian and Isabele opening a present from Nana and Grandpa.

Isabele playing with a motorcycle for Titus.

Isabele ferociously ripping paper off of a present.

Titus in his new "Horton hears a Who" PJ's. Gotta love the face.

Titus with his new puzzles from Nana and Grandpa and Isabele with her new bowl and spoon.

Titus got some building block and some new clothes. Isabele got some new clothes and a egg carton toy that she's quite enchanted with. The tops come off the eggs and then the eggs squeak. Brian found a computer table that rolls and tilts on super-clearance. It works great for the kids as a craft and building table. Titus is using it right now to work on his new puzzles.

Kids Christmas Pictures

Showing off Christmas Ornaments from Nana

Nana sent Titus a Criscraft ski boat ornament for this year. Isabele got a "sweet pea" ornament. Here they are showing them off so we can sent a picture and thank-you to Nana.

Titus helping Isabele walk

Isabele has really been working on her walking skills in the last few days. These pictures are from late last week. Titus was helping her walk. Sweet.

House pictures, finally

The dining room from the edge of the kitchen. The chimney is to the left. The kids little project table and the computer desk are now in the dining room. The china cabinet and the dining table are off to the right.
Here's the view from the living room/dining room doorway looking back at the kitchen.

Here's the counter that Brian built for me. 1x3's laminated and then another 1x3 that we steamed and bent to the curve. The double oven is just to the left - you can see a little bit of it. the microwave is on top of the oven cabinet. The dishwasher is under the counter - there was no way to put it on the other side of the kitchen by the sink without tearing out all of the counters and we don't want to do that on this remodel - maybe the next one, although after not having a dishwasher in years, it doesn't really matter where it is :-).
Here you can see the microwave and ovens and dishwasher. We aren't done with the counters by the stove - but what's there is usable while we get the wallpaper off the walls, and then work on painting.

Nothing has been painted yet - so these aren't final pictures, by any means - but a glimpse of what progress has been made so far.

Harry Hat Niner

Nana sent Titus a fake rubber snake the other day in the mail. After a long conversation about where it came from and that Nana put it in the mailman's hand and the mailman brought it to us, I asked him what the snake's name was. He didn't answer, so I said, "I guess the snake's name is 'Snake' the snake". Brian came home and asked him what the snake's name was. After a bit of thought, he said, "Harry Hat Niner". "What is his name Titus?" "Harry Hat Niner".

So, a week later, the snake's name is still Harry Hat Niner.

This week

Titus found Brian's razor, and managed to only cut his finger a little and shave about a 1/4 inch of one of his eyebrows - they're so light it took me a couple days to notice. No worries - I noticed the finger rather promptly, though he never cried and didn't realize he cut himself - just wanted to know what that stuff was on the toy he was playing with.

Isabele can take 2-3 steps holding onto only a spoon. She also climbs on anything she can manage - little chairs, the stairs, Titus' bed. The other day she climbed up on the kids chair next to my computer desk, then up onto their little table, then, if I hadn't picked her up and told her "no", she would have climbed right up onto my computer desk. She climbs the step stool in the kitchen, too. She's not quite big enough to climb out of her bed, or onto the couch or my bed, yet.

For my Birthday, I got a new bicycle!! It's purple and pretty. Brian's finishing up ordering the rest of the parts to update it as he got it off of Craigs List in Tennessee (gotta love being a pilot for a living) from a guy who hadn't used it in 4 or 5 years. It will be wonderful! Brian's also working on wiring in the new used ovens after building the base cabinet for them and then will start on plumbing the new used dishwasher - then the work-space countertop.

The mudding is done in the hallway and the kids room and also the arch in the diningroom/kitchen. Now I need to pick out paint for the hall and the kitchen and prime and paint. Looks like Brian's going to be off most of this coming week, so maybe we can get lots done.

The Things They Say

Titus woke up on the wrong side of the bed from his nap this afternoon. He wasn't crying, but was rather snively and whiny and generally pathetic. Of course, he won't or can't tell me what's wrong. After telling him that he needed to talk normally and stop whining, he said, "The battery from my mouth is dead and my mouth can't talk normally anymore." I asked him where we could put a new battery and got no response. Apparently he hadn't thought through his theory that far. Gotta love 'em, even when they drive you nuts.

Isabele at Dinner Tonight

"Mother said that it is all gone, but I think I can get a little bit more."

Is it working?

"What? You have a problem with my technique?"

"It worked. Mess? What mess? Not me."

"Now I'll just rub my hair a bit."

"Don't look at me. Look over there at Titus."

"I don't know who you thought you were watching, but it wasn't me. I'm innocent."

Sleeping

Poor girl cried herself to sleep. She was exhausted and I put her in her crib to keep her safe while we were demolishing a wall.



"I'm not tired. I'm not going to take a nap ..."

Photo Catch-up September and October

We have spent the last several months working on renovating our house. Titus has watched almost all of it and has readily picked up on how to do most everything. Above is his version of cutting drywall. The tape measure is underneath his arm. He's cutting with a hacksaw blade.
Below he's wearing his "headset" and sanding with the belt sander. The noise he's protecting his ears from is self-made. The sander is not plugged in.




Auntie Hannah was over and Lily needed nursed. Titus was going to help Hannah with that and was told to leave the baby alone - so off he went. Next thing I know, he's found the grinder I used for a while to grind up food for Isabele. Then he found my old pump. I didn't think that I pumped very much, and I know I haven't in months, but he remembered what it was for and how to use it.


Titus after an evening out at the woods burning up lath from the house. He's just a little dirty.


Isabele, on the other hand, is filthy. Her s'more ended up in her hair, smeared across her forehead and eyebrows and everywhere else on her face, too. I do think she enjoyed it.

Isabele's First Birthday

Little Miss Isabele turned 1 on the 30th of October. We had a party for her at home. Attendees: Titus, Brian, Me, Billa, Auntie Hannah, Uncle Mike, Cousin Lily, Nana, Grandpa and Isaac. We had homemade chicken noodle soup and French bread. Isabele got a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. There was also an Angel Food Cake - for those not wanting Isabele's slightly demolished chocolate cake.

She was enchanted with her cake. I forgot to get candles, so we stuck a match in and then lit the match. It burned just long enough and then fizzled out all on it's own.

She was quite tentative at first, just carefully picking off the pink and teal spots.

The end of her time with the cake - she had chocolate frosting everywhere.

Once again she is clean, if only for a few minutes. I like this expression. She liked the ribbon, but didn't know what she was supposed to do with the paper.

This, That and The Other

Here's the random update from this past week:

Titus no longer calls Micah's girlfriend "Chuma". He can say Kimber. Kind of sad.

Isabele can now walk all the way across a room walking between my legs holding onto my pants with both hands. She'll also walk holding onto both of my hands - or Brian's.

Our house renovation is continuing to progress. We have a new fan in the living room. A new light in the dining room and in the hall way. The new fan and lights look really good! The arches in the dining room are done - Brian did a great job with the plywood forms and then putting the drywall up! Mom's friend Juan is going to mud the arches for us as I just don't feel up to trying to get them to look good.
I have lots more mudding to do - everywhere, but it's getting closer to done every day.
The kids room is back to it's original size and I love it! I think Brian and I are going to get their dresser moved out of the closet tomorrow and maybe I'll get the rods moved around in the closet so there's more room for their clothes.
We also got a new door for the kids room and Brian re-sized an old door from Manaher's (people the live a couple doors down from my parents - they tore down their house and rebuilt and we scavenged quite a few things from them a couple years ago) for our bedroom.

I have all the wallpaper off of the kids new wall, most of the the wallpaper off in the hallway and 1 wall striped in the living room. Brian has 3 wall of bead board off in the diningroom - only one wall to go.

I have about a third of the bricks done on the chimney in the kitchen. Now I'm waiting for the next shipment to arrive at the store and the arches to get mudded.

All in all - a very busy, very productive week!! I think this next week will be a bit slower - Brian's working a lot, and the projects that make the most visual change are pretty much finished. Now it's the tedious stuff - finish mudding the new walls - and the joints between new and old; stripping old wallpaper, choosing and hanging new; a little painting; some curtains; scraping popcorn of ceilings - what a mess; and rearranging the kitchen ... Should be all completed next October, I hope.

Bedtime Conversation with a 2 Year Old

For the past several nights, Titus has had to ask me about "mooses and cowses".
"Mommy, there's no mooses in my room."
"No, there are no moose in your room."
"Mommy, there's no cowses in my room."
"No, there are no cows in your room."
"And Mommy, there's no mooses in the kitchen, and no cowses in the kitchen, and no mooses in the living room and no cowses in the living room."
"That's right, Titus. There are no moose or cows in the house. They live in the woods and barns far away."
"But Mommy, there are a couple mooses at Marrisa and Melayna's house."
"Oh, only a couple?"
"Yeah, there are only 2 mooses at Melayna's house."

At this point I gave up reasoning with him and agreed that there were 2 moose at Melayna's house. I have no idea where he got the notion that he had to make sure that there are no cows or moose in his room or his house. However, he was okay with there being 2 moose at Melayna's house. (I'm pretty sure that there are no moose or cows at the Howett house).

Sleep? Please!!

Isabele is so very different from Titus. All in all, I think this is a good thing - except in the area of sleeping. At 11 months, little Miss Isabele still isn't sleeping all night. Usually she's up at least twice, and 3 or 4 times isn't unheard of. She has been sleeping in a "pack-n-play" size crib since she moved into Titus' room months ago. It fit in the room better than the full size crib, and worked fine in my book. Today, I dug the full size crib out of the basement storage closet and put it together. Then I took the 2 kids and off we went to Wal-Mart for a mattress (Titus is using his crib mattress in his toddler bed that Brian built for him). I have high hopes that maybe Isabele will start sleeping for longer periods at night, though I'm not holding my breath.

The big crib is a little tight in their room, but very soon we will finish all of the rearranging of rooms and walls in the house and they will get another 3 1/2 feet added to their room, so the full size crib will not look so squished.

Marshmallows or Mushrooms

I bought some hot chocolate mix with the mini-marshmallows the other day. I made some for Titus, a treat when Brian brings me a mocha (decaf for Isabele) on his way home from work. Titus has had marshmallows only once or twice, and never in hot chocolate before. He's also had mushrooms once or twice. Neither are a staple in our house. So, he's sitting, quite happy with his hot chocolate at the table with Brian and I, when he says something about mushrooms. Brian asked him what he said and he repeated himself "I want more mushrooms in my hot chocolate." Hmmm. What? Mushrooms in your hot chocolate? Oh, you mean marshmallows in your hot chocolate. "Titus, can you say 'marshmallow'?" "Marshmallow". Okay - well, it's not that he can't say marshmallow, he just has the words a bit mixed up. I thought it was cute and decided not to push to hard to correct him. He'll correct himself soon enough, but until then ... we have mushrooms in the hot chocolate at our house.

Dirty kids and a couple of misc pictures

This picture didn't turn out as good as I would have liked. I made cornbread the other day and Titus helped me, sort of. I got the batter into the pans and Titus took the bowl. Next thing I know, he's been licking the bowl, with his tongue. He had cornbread batter from the crown of his head all the way to his chin and ear to ear. He nicely posed for pictures before I washed his hair in the sink.


Isabele is dancing to the music here. She was really moving.










Titus doesn't like noise. He found that the "headset" (supposed to be used when shooting) makes things much quieter. He thinks that it's a headset for flying. Here he's watching Brian use the router to make space in the new closet for the wiring for the lights in the basement stairwell.





The kids had to go to a meeting at work with me. They are always pretty good. This meeting was at 2PM and they didn't get a nap before hand. At the very end of the meeting Titus found my purse, and in it my lipstick. I knew what he was doing and frankly, didn't care. He was quite intent on putting on his lip. He even used both colors twice. He was so proud of himself, I didn't take it off. When we got in the car, he wanted to go to Bia's. He was asleep in about 2 minutes, slept in the car at my mom's for about 10 minutes, didn't wake up when we got home and I went in and got the camera and took pictures of him. He can be so sweet.













Isabele covered in dirt and sand stuck on by snot and goo. Yuck! How can she still be so cute?

Mixing Things Up and Catching Up

So between the kids not sleeping well recently and doing some work on the house - I haven't been keeping up with the blog. Maybe I can catch things up here.

Titus has figured out personal pronouns and refers to himself more as I or me than "Titus". He has also figured out how to turn the key in the truck all the way to start the truck. Luckily he can't reach the brakes and therefore cannot put the truck in gear. He is becoming more competitive with Isabele as she is getting more and more mobile. He can draw circles - far from perfect, but they are more or less round and he finishes them at the same place he started them. When he goes to bed at night he has to have his flannel blanket folded up into a square, they way I fold them after they have been washed - then he sleeps on it like a pillow.

Isabele insists on standing as much as possible. She moves her feet when she's standing, but hasn't really started walking around objects while holding on yet. She is very talkative, though nothing means much. She drinks out of a cup quite well. She has an opinion about absolutely everything and gets very frustrated when those around her cannot figure out what she wants. After a week of waking me up and keeping me awake at night more than she did as a newborn, she gone to only waking up once a night to nurse!!

Brian and I have now been married 10 years, and true to us, we didn't do any of the traditional anniversary things - instead we decided to do a little revamping of our house (the pictures from the previous post). We now have a dining room!! and it is wonderful! We have a long way to go to get everything completely finished, but we have winter coming all too quickly and will need to have something to do when we can't spend all day outside.

That's the last month in a nutshell. Hopefully I'll do a little better with the upkeep of the blog since the major construction is complete inside - now it's just finish work.

House changes

View from living room through dining room to kitchen and "hallway" to the bedrooms and bathroom.

Play area and leather rocking chair at the back of the house off the kitchen.

Flowers Titus and I picked from the garden today - on the dining room table.

Another view of the dining room - I like the sunshine on the table.

Here's the dining room from the living room arch and then on into the kitchen.