despite the chilly weather and the cold cold cold wind, we ventured outside to play in the front yard for a bit... here are more than a few pictures of the adventure:

you can't go wrong with play-doh... clockwise: adella, elijah, rachel, noah, henry three little monkeys jumping on a mimi-trampoline! today was co-op day again, and it went great! the kids got along and played well, the time went by quickly, and lots of fun was had by all. next week i am actually going to have the morning to myself and i CAN'T WAIT! i'm keeping all my fingers and toes crossed that neither adella or me gets sick, the car doesn't break down, and nothing interferes with my morning of freedom! a mama's got to have a break, you know. and speaking of breaks, i'm going to take advantage of bug's naptime to do Nothing for as long as i can...

aaaahhhhhhhh. finally. finished. taxes. that's right - all done! yep, i am a little obsessive about getting it done, but at least i'm not stressing at the last minute. a satisfying finish to a busy day. now i can cross 'do taxes' off my list and move on. i just got adella off to sleep a few minutes ago , and stig is at his class, so i have the night to myself... i think i'll do something crazy like sit on the couch and knit and fall asleep watching TV. speaking of knitting, (and for those of you with no interest in knitting, scroll down a bit...) here's a picture of the 'family of hats'. i actually finished these before christmas, but never got around to showing them off: i'm now in the midst of a baby bonnet and bootie set for a friend at work who is having a baby soon. there are actually two pregnant girls at work, and as soon as the other finds out if she is having a boy or girl, i'll start in with round 2. my friend amy just told me about the 'knitting olympics' that she signed up for. the rules are simple: you must cast on during the opening ceremonies you must cast off by the closing ceremonies plus, it has to be something somewhat challenging, but not something that will push you over the edge either. i don't think there is an actual prize. i'm thinking of entering, but i have no good project ideas. yet. on to adella news... she's great. a budding artist if i ever saw one. here are a few pics from today. adella looks so cute in her little shirt/smock. once i can remember to buy some stamps, some of you lucky readers might be the recipients of one of adella's pieces. oh - a new contest idea just came to me! if you respond to this post i will send you your very own refrigerator picture. now that's incentive. and i'm not buying the whole "terrible two's" thing. "terrific two's," i remind myself. it's all in the way you look at it. and it is terrific. adella is learning so much and doing so many new things, it is truly amazing. we are so lucky to have such a smart, sweet little girl. but there are times when i have to try just a bit harder to remember... terrific, not terrible. terrific, not terrible. with the learning and trying comes much frustration and much testing, and testing, and testing the limits... and she has been a bit touchy lately. touchy like a sensitive, delicate flower, or touchy like a live grenade about to blow. you just ever know these days. in other news, does everyone know that lauren and rob are getting married...? IN SCOTLAND!? the other fun part (i know, what could be more fun?) is that they are going to see the rolling stones in london while on their honeymoon/wedding! as much as i wanted to see adella in a little flower girl dress, this plan is so much cooler. congratulations lauren and rob, and don't forget to send pictures! okay folks, nighty-night.

yay! the weekend! that is what i should be saying, but as many of you know, i work on the weekends, so weekends are my workdays. oh well. 5:30 comes early, and to make matters just a bit worse, i woke up and got ready to take my shower and found out we had NO WATER! i fully expected to find a basement full of water, but thankfully it was just a broken water main in the neighborhood. i washed my hair in a bowl of drinking water and scurried off to work. adella and stig had a fun day - they actually came to visit me at work, which is always a nice surprise. and the old people love seeing little folks around, so it brightened their day too. if i could get stig to post a blog entry, he could tell about the fun adventures they had, but he still is not convinced. i think their day mostly consisted of going to the music store to get his new baby (mandolin) calibrated or whatever the technical term is. we did get started planning the mulch bed for adella's playground, which is definitely a promising start. then i got to go by myself to the yarn store (25% off all yarn!) and got yarn for a few projects i am starting... i'll post pics when they are done. while i was there, i picked up some washable markers for adella, because lately she is really into markers. it's great - i'm so glad she is so into drawing and art and crafty things. i've been waiting to do crafts with her since the day she was born! she really enjoys drawing, and i must say, she has wonderful control and good use of color. she makes very precise little marks usually, and i think she drew a '6' today. adella's latest impossibly cute activity: she said "bless you" when i sneezed! she is also saying 'oh my gosh!' and shushing me and stig at completely random moments.

adella's latest impossibly cute (although embarassing) activity: this morning we went to visit my friend nancy. while we were there, adella saw a lady with a tiny baby in an infant carrier. "look! baby," she said again and again. and then, "ssshhhh... baby sleeping." after a few minutes, the lady started to leave and i told adella to say goodbye to the baby. adella went over to the baby and sweetly said "bye bye, monkey!" i can only hope that the nice lady didn't understand what she said... ****************************************************** yesterday we went to the community center again for toddler time. what fun! the favorite was a set of giant building blocks - adella made towers and then dramatically knocked them down, squealing and laughing. over and over and over... i later tried to re-create the fun at home with some empty food containers. happily, adella was pretty pleased with the makeshift blocks , and even added a new twist: knocking them down with a ball. we played outside today in the front yard/mudpit, and i decided what we need is a framed mulch bed to put adella's playscape and sandbox in. seems easy enough. it will make such a better groundcover for the play area than the mud we have now. and with adella and her friends romping around, it's not as if grass will grow there anyway. most importantly, it will cut back on the matter of muddy shoes. now to actually get it done is another matter. i'll keep you posted on my progress. oh - one more notable thing: adella now referrs to me as 'mom'. not mama or mommy. mom. i don't know where it came from, she just woke up today and started saying "mom". it makes her sound so grown up i can't stand it! it makes me sound so grown up i can't stand it! she's not allowed to call me that until much, much later. maybe never.

adella and the pummelo

last night, at the shopping extravaganza that is super wal-mart, i found this: a pummelo. the giant grapefruit-thing next to the my little pony (for scale). i have never seen one before, and probably would not have bought it, except that it smells so good! like a super sweet grapefruit - and i could smell them just walking by the produce bins. so, i had to try it. here it is again, partly peeled: can you see that the inside is bright pink? and here is adella, sampling some of the mangled pummelo: in the end, i was disappointed in the taste, but maybe this one just wasn't ripe yet. i decided to leave the plate of pummelo peel on the counter for some natural aromatherapy... the highlight of our day so far: i found the long lost aquadoodle marker! yaay! i looked at replacement markers at the store, but they were almost $5 - too much. so this morning i searched adella's closet and found the water marker. we have been drawing all morning. lately she just wants me to draw houses and hot dogs over and over. last week it was fish and starfish, then ice cream cones. now she says, "mommy! draw house. draw hot dog." then when i draw them, she looks and says, "oh! see it! hot dog!" so cute! and look - i found a new hairdo that she somewhat tolerates! doesn't she look adorable? toe inspection time today i introduced adella to pretzels dipped in cream cheese. gross, you say? no way - it's good. don't you remember the giant soft pretzels at the mall that came with a cream cheese dip? adella likes it, as you can see. i hope everyone is enjoying the new blog. give me some feedback if you have time - stig says i might be overdoing it, but i am having fun with it. i'm working on getting him to write a few posts, but no luck yet. gotta run, folks. it is cold today, and perfect weather for a nice mug of chai tea (thanks mom!) and knitting on the couch while adella naps.

today was babysitting co-op and i was on duty with ada's mom, fyffe. the kids did really great - a few minor pushing and toy snatching episodes, but pretty good all in all. unfortuately, my camera batteries died about 5 minutes into it, so i missed many cute shots. next time i will remember to recharge. adella is starting to get into trains, ever since stig and i took her to barnes and noble to play with the thomas train set, and wouldn't you know, ada has a thomas train set too! adella was pretty excited about this, as were henry and noah, so the three of them had quite a time putting the track together and pushing the little cars around it. it's nice to know that b&n is just down the road, and the train table will keep her happily playing while i read a magazine. and a good rainy day destination too. i'm off to the medicaid office again this afternoon, and adella will go over to elijah's to play. at least one of us will have some fun. oh, and speaking of fun, this evening i have to go to super wal-mart to do some grocery shopping. i have such mixed feelings about wal-mart. i know they are evil and all, but the prices are just so good, i can't help it. still, there is something rather obscene about the too big-ness of it all. one day when we are rich, i will only buy organic food from local businesses. for now, there is super wal-mart.

busy, busy day... knitting group this morning - the kids got along great, for the most part. only a few minor incidents. the blueberry muffins that kim brought were a big hit, until someone used them as play-dough and they ended up squished on the floor. that's okay. i'm actually starting to enjoy this mopping thing. stig took the day off to take both sick puppies to the vet. i won't go into specifics, because it's not pretty. hopefully once we pay off the enormous vet bills we can look back on this and not be stressed. i spent a good part of the afternoon in the medicaid office trying to reapply for adella's health insurance. i absolutley HAD to be out of there by 4:00 so stig could get mia to the vet. by 3:55, they were just calling number 74 (i was number 75), so as you may have guessed, i didn't make it. i graciously gave my number to the guy sitting/sleeping next to me; as i walked out the door i am sure they called my number. so, i'll be back again tomorrow... and i'll rememeber to bring a book and a coffee and turn it into something resembling a nice quiet afternoon alone (i have to take it when i can get it!) stig is at his computer class right now, and adella just fell asleep, so i am going to spend a few quiet minutes knitting and watching an episode of LOST that i recorded (i know, i know, geeky) before i fall asleep on the couch. it has been a big day, too big for a monday. on another note: adella is now obsessed with a 20 minute 'little people' dvd that came with her little people farm. the toy is cool and adella loves it, but the dvd people are strange little people with gigantic hands and mouths that never move. we've watched it over and over, and though it is brand new, i already have the little people theme song (sung by aaron neville) stuck in my head. adella keeps coming to me saying, "mommy, watch freddie?" except it sounds like, "mommy, vuch fuz-zie?" okay, one more time....

adella's latest impossibly cute activity: this afternoon as i was putting some dvd's into the hall closet, she caught a glimpse of bob dylan's 'no direction home' (an awesome dvd that stig received for xmas - thanks lauren!) and adella blurted out, "monkey! ooh ooh ooh!" i suppose ol' bob does look a bit like a monkey. i can see how it could be confusing.

portfolio, part I

little bug is napping already today, after another very early and difficult morning... so i've got a few minutes and i wanted to post these pictures that our budding photographer took after breakfast this morning: notice the extreme close-up of her eyes, WITH the flash.

adella made this adorable paper dinosaur at the community center, right before a major meltdown that prompted us to come home. it all began at 4:30 a.m., when olive decided she needed to go outside, and woke us up howling. the howling woke up adella, who woke me up by getting into our bed and rolling on my head over and over. this went on for several hours until, at 8:00, i decided i might as well get out of bed since no one was sleeping anyway. at 10:00, we made our way to the montford community center for two fun-filled hours of play and crafts and snacks. we lasted about an hour before the meltdown. after a nice lunch and a midday nap (me too today!), we headed out to the playground to play with kim and elijah. here's adella, strapped in with duckies, ready to go... one nice thing about global warming is that it allows us to play outside in the middle of january, without the feeling of it really being january. it's terrible, but convenient for entertaining toddlers. adella actually jumped off of this thing today! scary, but thrilling (for her) ahoy, matey! on the way home from the playground, we drove past the road to the nature center and adella said "mommy! see animals day?" she remembers! i'm assuming she'll also remember that i told her we could go see the animals tomorrow if the weather is nice. so, stay tuned tomorrow for some animal pictures! adella's latest impossibly cute activity: throwing her babydoll down on the floor and then gently picking it up, saying, "sorry baby - baby sad..." and patting it on the head. i swear, she did not learn that from us.

hey! they do work! yippee!!

after much frustration, i finally figured out how to add a 'links' sidebar to the blog. i sorted through a bunch of gibberish computer formatting code and inserted my links where they are supposed to go, republished the blog, and ... ta-da! it doesn't work. the links are there, but they lead to nowhere. so, i'm working on the problem. hopefully soon i can find someone to help who knows what they are doing, but for now the links are a dead end. but soon, i promise...

adella, it is your destiny.... a bigley-stiglets trivia challenge: name one person in our family (either side) who does NOT wear glasses. there is no escape for little adella... good thing she looks so darn cute.

bright and early this morning: about a half a minute after this picture was taken, the contents of that blue water bottle were on the floor. pretty cute, huh? who am i kidding, it was pretty cute. it was only water. and the kitchen floor need a good mop anyway. she has been insisting on washing her hands at the sink after every meal, which is great, except of course for incidents like this morning. oh well. adella's latest impossibly cute activity: ever since her party, we actually have ice cream in the freezer (we usually can't buy it because none of us have any self-control) so anytime i ask her if she wants a particular thing to eat she'll say, "nooo, buuuuuut..... ICE CREAM!!" and then she'll smile so sweetly that it is (nearly) impossible for me to resist. little bug is actually taking a nap this afternoon, so i am going to get some knitting time in before she wakes up!

adella's 2nd birthday party! i tried not to go too far overboard, but how can i resist when my baby is celebrating two whole years on the planet? it was a great party - i was a bit nervous at first, since adella was passed out on the couch when everyone arrived. ever since she turned two, she's decided she no longer needs naps. but there comes a point (usually around 3pm) when she has no choice but to stop and catch a few winks. so she was asleep when the guests arrived, but woke up fairly easily and jumped right in to play. everyone had a great time - the balloons were a big hit with the kids, and the mamas and papas got to hang out and talk, almost like real adults. so, here are a few pictures of the big event: