8 Months

Well, I find myself in a familiar position,

hopelessly behind on the blog.

Life has been a total blur for the

last two months, but more on that to come.

In Ilea news:

After Ilea started crawling she immediately

began pulling herself up and

within a week or so she was walking along things.

 

I think she would be full blown walking already

except for the small problem that she likes

to be on her toes all the time

(it makes balancing more difficult,

but does really solidify the ballerina look)

 

She pretty much just needs to see another baby

do it once and she has it down 

(as illustrated by these pictures of her first

climb up a flight of stairs following Cousin Anna)

Also Grandpa Jack and Grandma Carla came to visit

and stayed in a hotel with a pool
so Ilea got her first swim lesson in January.

 She loved it.

I can't wait to take her to the beach this summer.

She has also started eating solid foods.

We normally just blend up some of what we

are having and she always plows through it,

often eating more than Orin

who still claims he is full after eating 2 tablespoons of food.

 And speaking of Orin,

the sibling infatuation continues.

Beginning first thing in the morning 

with a group bath.

These two are always together.

 

 If Orin wants to go sledding

Ilea goes sledding

If Orin goes hiking

Ilea goes hiking
 

(I just wanted to throw this one in there because I love it.)

 If Orin goes to the beach



Ilea goes to the beach
 
 Yup, they are just about inseparable,
Except during Orin's hockey practice
2 times a week
(Orin is totally in love with hockey)
and when he does other big-kid stuff
like building sculptures on the deck

(babies ruin sculptures)

In other news,

we got a pair of breeding quail,
but since it is January
and they can't keep their eggs warm
we liberate them for omelets.

(They are quite tasty, although very small)

We have also traveled and visited with family

checking in and catching up 

with Uncle Alex now that he is back from tour

And, for our biggest news of all
(and the reason why I haven't been able to keep up
with the blog at all lately)

We are opening a store!

It is called NewFarm
and is a retail store where we will sell products
for people interested in what we call "micro-farming"
(or urban farming or backyard farming)
It will likely be the coolest store of all time.

For Christmas Nana Sheree got us all
matching NewFarm shirts
and we haven't stopped wearing them since.

If all goes as planned, we should be open in
3 short weeks.
So I am off now to focus on my constant stream
of multi-tasking that has become the standard
for every day of the week.
Hopefully, I will get to post more about the store soon.
Hopefully.

(Hey, at least I got some baby updates in!)

Ilea Crawls

In other news,

Ilea has begun crawling...

Yes, at 6 months she is off and away.

I distinctly remember being able to put Orin

down at 8 or 9 months and have him

remain in basically the same place.

Not so with this one.

This baby is nothing but trouble.

Steps to hockey

Ever since Orin learned to skate

he has wanted to play hockey.

He didn’t have to wait long because

in Massachusetts, playing hockey or figure skating

is just what you do in the winter

(there are not that many options
when it is 8 degrees outside)

Growing up, I have fond memories

of 10 hour days at the rink

during tournament weekends

as my brother and I alternated games.

I considered for a short time

depriving my son of the full hockey experience:

the feeling of the cold air rushing through 

your jersey, the sound of the puck

ricocheting off the boards,

the taste of airheads and nachos for dinner,

the smell of the end-of-season

hockey bag... 

but then I decided against it.

So during the sales of the off season last summer,

we collected all of his gear.

 And then, during the fall, we signed him up

for the learn-to-skate program.

 But skating once a week for seven

weeks doesn’t add up to enough practice time,

so we needed a way to clock more hours

in between sessions.

Of course, there was no way I could

take him to skate

because I had to take care of Ilea…

 

Just kidding.

-->

 

 Didn’t I already mention how we east coasters

feel about hockey?

You can hop on the ice when you are 5 minutes

old out here.

So we got some good family practice in

and finally, he was ready:

 Here he is lined up with some of his teammates
(Orin is on the right side of the picture,
notice that for possibly the first time ever
he is the tallest person in the group)

 And at last, it was time to play:

 At this point, I think you need a video

to fully take in the adorableness.

Orin is in the middle with grey shin pad covers

(shin pad covers = mom's leg warmers)

 Later on in the scrimmage
Orin got the puck, broke away from the pack
and scored the only goal of the game.
To say we were proud would be
the understatement of the year.

Undecided

Ever since I first got pregnant, I wondered

what Ilea would look like.

Would she have brown eyes like me,

or blue like Casey?

Would she have my straight brown hair,

or his curly sandy blonde?

Well, now that she is just 2 days shy of 6 months

I can say definitively that

we still have no idea.

Her hair looks straight sometimes

and curly other times.

 Sometimes it looks light brown or blonde

 and sometimes it looks reddish.

 And her eyes are brownish, blueish, grayish.

 Maybe this is the price we have to pay 

for giving her two middle names?

Or maybe she just doesn't like being rushed.

The one thing I can say, though,

is Ilea is the most relaxed, happy baby in the history of the Universe.

Every morning, she hops on the rollercoaster that is our day-to-day

life and just goes with the flow,

whether it be racing around an ice rink in her stroller

(post to follow), bouncing around in the carrier on my back

while I play soccer with Orin,

getting bathed in the sink because someone is

using the bathroom in the morning,

or dancing with her daddy at a wedding until 10pm.

You literally can't make this baby unhappy

as long as she is clean and fed.

So with brownish, blueish, greyish eyes,

one thing is for certain: this kid rocks.

Amarkable Packages of Life

Today Orin came home from school

singing a song he had learned in

horticulture class.

It was too cute not to share.

Noisy Children

Some of you may remember a blog post I wrote years ago,

I think it was titled "The Cougar"

It included a video of Orin as a baby

screaming at the top of his lungs (his "cougar noise")

Well, the other day we were making dinner 

while this was going on in the background.

Point of the story: I guess I just have noisy children.

Happy, noisy children.

Learning to Laugh

I was just going through the video files and I realized that

I hadn't posted a couple really cute ones of Ilea.

This is Ilie learning to laugh.

Hey, it's not easy to figure it out, you know.

Here is another one taken a couple days later.

Almost a laughing master.

With her two favorite boys around, 

there are a lot of opportunities to practice.