A sad day for us.

Today we took Murphy in to get neutered. He had a bad reaction to the anaesthetic and his heart stopped. The vets did all they could, but they couldn't get it going again.

Goodbye little buddy. We miss you already.

Charlie's been having company.

Spotted a Mama moose on Monday when I opened the window in the morning. She is very, very pregnant, and didn't seem to be afraid of me at all. I stood in the window and watched her for a long time, talked to her so she would look at me and all. She didn't even seem to flinch. Beautiful. In these pictures, she's about 20 yards from the house.

No new pictures of a little girl, she won't hold still!

Those of you who are following Charlie's progress, here's the latest picture. As of Feb. 11.

Look what the Valentine's fairy brought me.

So pretty. And they smell lovely too.
Thanks hon.

Hard work!

Last night we made egg salad, and Katie decided that she needed to have a boiled egg too, since I had some. She tapped the end on the counter, just like Mommy, and set to work picking bits of shell off. She did a pretty good job too.
And then this morning she played dress-up. Her hat, on backwards, the wristwarmers that I knitted for myself, and she had mitts on as well at one point. The shirt is quite appropriate, I think.

Growing up too fast.

It is a sad state of affairs when your cloth diapered child outgrows her pants in length before the butt gets too tight. Sad indeed.

I know it's been a long time since I updated, I'm sorry. Things have gotten a little crazy, but it's good, I think. I started a home-based business selling a well-known brand of kitchen tools that I'm not allowed to speak the name of here, and I'm pretty excited about that. I've been using them for years and years, and I very much believe in the product that I'm selling, which is most of the battle. Andrew has been in and out more than usual as he started 2 new contracts for the winter in addition to the one he usually has. Nothing major, just a few extra days here & there.

Murphy is doing very well and growing like crazy. He caught his first bird last Friday, now we just have to get him onto the mice. Morgan still hasn't turned up since December 15th. Bailey is as happy and rambunctious as ever, not enjoying our current cold snap, but it's not as though she spends a ton of time outside anyways, the spoiled creature. Charlie continues to heal. His wound is now about 2 inches wide and 3-4 inches tall, and almost all the swelling is gone. I'm keeping it wrapped up in this very cold weather and he seems to be pretty pleased with that turn of events.

And speaking of growing like weeds. We know you all only read this blog for one reason, so here she is. Katie is 19 months old now and getting bigger every day. She learns new words every day, and has become quite the little parrot. (No more speakerphone for Daddy when he's talking to his friends at work! Some of those guys are worse than sailors.) She now says, in addition to many others, "book", "bear", "shoe", "peekaboo", and "bless you". She's getting very tall, and it seems as though every time I get her dressed I think "this is the last time you're going to be able to wear this." Current favorite toys are the legos she got for Christmas.

Here she is drinking out of the big-kid Starbucks cup that Boppa bought for her. She thinks that's pretty cool.

And here she is in the midst of playing games with Daddy. She loves to play peekaboo under a blanket.

Pancakes!

Today we made pancakes. We put a bit of applesauce and cinnamon in the batter, and someone thought that must be good enough to eat, so she tried some of the batter. Thought it was okay, I guess. No eggs in it, so whatever. She really liked the finished product, and she thought that flipping them was ever so funny, but nothing beats getting to stir.

Look, I even have my own apron!

Okay, time to get serious now. Yum!

She'll love me for this later.

Mmmmm, hummus!

Christmas and since then.

Took Katie a few minutes to figure out what we wanted her to do with this papered thing. Especially since we'd been telling her for days that we didn't want her to tear off the paper. Once she figured it out though, she helped all the rest of us open our presents too.

But first she figured she'd just wrap her chair back up while she was sitting in it.

Starting the new year off right, reading the Bargain Finder with Daddy.
And no, this picture is not staged. She decided that all by herself.

Having a snack in her new chair. And her new jammies. Very cute.

Yesterday, grating some cheese to put in her scrambled eggs. Yummy Tillamook cheese that Grammy and Papa brought for us from Oregon. Such a big helper.

Then she figured out that she could get her leg up onto the counter, so I lowered the platform in her tower. Took her about 2 seconds to circumvent that!

I'm as clever as I am cute!

Katie's new tower

We asked Dad (Pappa) if he would make Katie a stand so she would be a bit safer when she's helping in the kitchen, and so she can get up & down by herself. And he came through with this wonderful creation.

I think she likes it.

More pictures and stories will come sometime after bedtime.

Baking!

Well, more heating things up in a pan and then letting them cool than baking, I guess. We did bake later, we just didn't take pictures then. Mostly because the best one would've been Katie sucking on the spice covered measuring spoon. What can I say, the girl loves her spices.

Here she is beating the candycanes so we can make peppermint bark. Yum!

And here she is showing off her ponytail. Her hair is long enough now to make a ponytail in the back. Until she rips it out anyway. Is very cute.

Even better.

Apologies

I have to apologize for the serious lack of pictures lately. She now stops what she's doing and runs away when I get out the camera. If it's warm again tomorrow, we'll try to get more snow pictures though.

Messy, messy.

We had pasta for supper tonight, and some of Katie's noodles slipped off her fork onto the ground. After supper, I guess she felt the need to help clean up.

We've been letting Bailey play for a while, but now that Katie's a little bigger and a lot more stable, Bailey gets to play even more. Which is great for both of them, and the more it happens the less excited they are. Which means that Katie doesn't get knocked over so often, and Bailey's hair doesn't get pulled so much.

I love my doggy!

Too bad she's never happy. Geez. She's so hard to get along with.

Mama's little helper.

I guess the shopping list was missing a few things.

Snow Day!

Today we woke up to some snow. Also woke up to no power, but that was quickly resolved. The new insulation works great, and the repair man was already working on the problem by the time I discovered it. I was on the phone with the electric company to put our name on the list of "make sure we have power before you go home" people when the lights turned on again. So I told her not to bother putting my name on the list. Ha. We ended up with about an inch and a half of snow before it quit coming down, but it was pretty warm this afternoon, so it melted a bunch. We did take a walk around the yard before it melted though, just for pictures' sake.


First, this is how she entertained herself yesterday morning. Apparently she needed a little decoration.

And here she is getting her first look at snow up close. She was pretty excited about it until I made her walk in it. Then she got a little bit miffed at me.

"What is this stuff, Mom?"

"It's touching me!"

"I think I'll look from here, thank you very much."

A breath of fresh air

Yesterday we went for a nice walk in the yard with the critters. Okay. Enough pictures, I'm going to play!

New trick: Climbing up on anything she can reach.

New clothes and new shoes! The shoes won't fit properly until spring probably, but she had to try them on.

Hmmm... Interesting...

Here. you should read this too.

Adventures in Katieland.

Katie is trying to learn to be gentle with the cats. Here she is petting Morgan while she eats breakfast. Notice Morgan is ready to run if the going gets rough.
Then she decided it was time to place an order.
And wait for the little cat to make his delivery.
Today she tried hummus again. She wasn't thrilled with it before, but apparently she likes it now. She even dips her crackers in like a big kid.
Well, like a big, messy kid anyway. She got it everywhere.

A Porcupine!!!

First, she told me she wanted to be a ghost instead. A pretty, rainbow ghost.

Then she said, "well, okay. I can be a porcupine if you'll draw me some whiskers." And the whiskers and the black nose were so funny that she giggled the whole while.

Here is my front.
Here is my back. Watch you don't get too close!
And the cousins too.
Katie's costume was a big hit all around. Everyone loved it.

A preview of cuteness to come

Finished Katie's Halloween costume last night. You'll get to see the rest of it in a couple days, the outfit that goes underneath is in the wash. It's very cute. And this hat is toasty enough that we can use it for winter too.