*happy birthday 'Desta'!!

We can't believe you're 1! I started watching Stella when she was 6 months - it's hard to believe that much time has gone by! I wish you could see how excited Vera gets when she and her mom pull up in the driveway. Also, any time I say, "guess who's coming over??" she exclaims, "Des-ta!" She's really a sweet little thing - loving, cuddly and with the cutest little lisp :)

*

So last week we read a little book where the character stood on his head at one point. Afterwards, I asked Vera, "can you stand on your head?" and she immediately did it! I love to test and see what she's understanding - and am amazed still every time she does. Have I mentioned that watching a little one grow is about the most wonderful thing ever???

*I ♥ bloomers

I really do. In this day of dressing your baby like she's already a teenager - which I probably do sometimes, I guess I just love it as something so perfectly baby. I actually started a post back in June that I never got around to finishing, and took the above pictures today before I got an email saying I had won a pair of classic bloomers! Maybe you're familiar with the blogging world 'giveaways.'.. Yesterday I was reading through the new issue of the online SMALL magazine - one page had a bundle of companies offering giveaways to the 10th person to contact them. Lo and behold, I was the 10th! on the only one I responded to! I am floored: I don't think I've ever won anything!* A happy little surprise this Sunday :)

***

[ [wait... I am remembering winning The Simpsons Sing the Blues (my first cd!) at a KWNZ thing at Carson Jr. High. 5th grade?] ]

*funny stuff

...at least Vera thinks so..

{{volume up}}

*

These beautiful Chinese pajamas were a gift from Ben's parents when I was pregnant - I remember imagining my little dark-haired, dark-eyed daughter wearing them someday. I can tell you it took me a while to get used to the little blondie who surprised us all! When Ben's Granny first met Vera she kept exclaiming over the howlie boy :)

I love to think of all the different backgrounds that came together in little Vera - Ben's grandfather growing up in the Phillipines speaking a language I know nothing about, his Chinese Granny growing up as basically an indentured servant in Hawaii, another grandfather hopping the train from Oklahoma to California Steinbeck style, my dad's dad growing up on hop farms in Washington, one grandmother of mine adopted out to a family who needed help in their restaurant in Yerrington, Nevada. Imagine them meeting up back in the 40s - hey our descendents will have children together! It's truly amazing, really, where we all come from.

Later on, snuggled in bed - like a little princess in her fancy jammies.

*abuela

While everyone else skied today, we hung out at home with Grandma Sheila. After a semi-disastrous walk to Coffee Garden [it was a beautiful day!!!] and a failed nap we played on the bed and made/shared some *soup* before meeting everyone else for dinner. a good time :)

this is the newest/latest game: make mommy sit on the stool and finish her soup!
and use her spoon!

*enfoque

I'm not feeling the words coming tonight [I've tried to start this like 3 times], but I've wanted to remember these little activities we've been doing. I've been reading a couple books and blogs on the Montessori method for early childhood and find it all so so interesting [and am so thankful to Jenny for introducing me to it all! Seriously, I'd be a dud of a mom without her. well not really, but kind of!]. I'd been anxious to have Vera try some of the little activites that encourage the child to focus and develop fine-motor skills, but you could tell that she's just not quite ready to sit for too long following a Mommy-directed activity [her tea set, pots+noodles+spoons, playing in her kitchen and with Bunny/Dollie are another story] :) These are a start...

We've had these wooden beads for a few months and she's now able to do it on her own - though she still likes to do it together sometimes :) If she's in the right mood, she'll do it a couple times over and over. It's been cute to see her slowly learn to do it all by herself.



Another little activity that I got from this blog post. She was into it when we had a mini-Montessori date at Sam+Amelia's [I'm thinking mainly because it was what Sam wanted to do], but gets impatient quickly and wants to do her own thing, ie. throw the pins across the room or shake the bottle, or try to stuff bunny's paws through the top. I took a video after we tried it the first time - she does 2 of my favorite things in this video: how she says "see??" to Bunny and her adorable little pleased-with-herself laugh.

She really loves this one - painting with water on a chalkboard. I'm going to be careful to keep it a special activity, so she won't lose interest. She likes to paint "dots" and will do a cat too, if I ask her to :)

[sorry, re-reading this I feel like it's all super-awkwardly written. I think I need to go to bed]

***
So far, these are the books I've read: Montessori from the Start, Raising an Amazing Child the Montessori Way and Mommy, Teach Me! I don't feel like searching out the links, do you mind?

The blogs on my googleReader: Chasing Cheerios and The Wonder Years.

*la holga

Do you have stacks of random pictures hanging around that you don't know what to do with? I have all these old Holga photos that I love, but just don't know where to put. They don't really fit in the middle of my family vacation albums and I can never remember to buy frames this size ... so I scanned them. I love my Holga - a boxy, cheap, plastic camera held together with tape. Basically it takes charming - ie. poor quality- pictures. The only thing is that both the film and the developing are pretty expensive [besides, now you can just go to picnik.com to make your pictures look old + crappy!] Anyway here's some of my favorites...

paris - 2004 : just before I got married. sipping tea and writing in my journal.

ben on our honeymoon : eating at a cafe from sleepless in seattle.

tulip, iris and dafodil bulbs my mom sent from the beds around our old house. i planted them at ben's and my first rental and wish i'd dug them up before we left :(

my adorable and very photogenic niece, olivia - now 8!

boone was the cutest puppy ever!!

*ponytails!

...kind of... you might not be able to tell in pictures, but Vera has - what some people have told me - a reverse mullet. It's growing all long by her ears, but not in the back or on top. How cute is it to see her in mini pigtails?? I can imagine her traipsing off to kindergarten...

*

One of my favorite things - a nice, neat stack of packages and/or letters ready to go:

:especially nice because its preparation usually involves this:

***

It's pretty obvious that this blog is my project, so I've decided to make it officially so [notice the "posted by" - that's how I made it official :)]. Ben is my biggest fan anyway, and he has enough writing to do on his own:


I feel freer this way to post about whatever I want and not feel constricted to this being a "family blog." I like how my sister put it as being a moleskin of sorts - a place to write all those ideas, remember those things you see/do, etc. Pretty much nothing will change, just under my name now. So I can still fill the blog with pictures like these - because this is the kind of thing I see/do every day:

*el pan

I finally made some bread yesterday! Don't be too impressed - it was a bit of a disaster, though still edible. I'd forgotten that my mom's recipe is too big for my KitchenAid and it began overflowing up around the motor. I tried to keep it down with a spatula and probably could have broken my hand or something. I ended up having to knead it on the table - which is ok, but made it all a little more complicated with 2 little charges on my hands. I then got impatient with it's second rising and put it in the oven too soon. So it's a little heavy and dense, but still tasty - especially if you load it up with butter + honey. I did accidentally leave honey bear out on the counter and Vera saw him half full. She was very sad and confused, although she did seem to like my bread! Phew.

This is how the girls entertained themselves while I was busy with doughy hands:

*vestida

I love to see what Vera ends up wearing by the end of the day [or sometimes as early as noon] with all the diaper changes, messy meals, etc. Also if there's shoes/boots, a hat and mittens around, they're on.

*la leoncita

Roaring like a lion is Vera's animal-sound-of-the-moment. So we were both excited yesterday when we found this little guy on sale at Anthropologie! She roared through the store as we browsed and kept roaring in the dressing room and then all the way home [well she wailed as we handed it to the clerk-lady to purchase]. He's pretty cute.

*¡año y medio!

Vera is officially one and a half!

The last month has been .... on the difficult side. Mostly from adjusting back to pre-holiday schedule, being sick and getting those molars through. She had started to be a pretty good eater - loving broccoli and green beans, but we're back to square one there :( The whole issue with "no!" has been tough too. All part of being a parent, right? We just try to keep consistent and offer her the greens, discipline where needed, love her a lot, etc. I have definitely learned that phases come and go.

She's been a little more herself the last week which we're loving. After she goes to bed we comment to each other that we think she's the cutest little thing in the whole world and share our favorite of the day.

Here is a picture of little Vera Winters at 18 months:

She has more words now that don't take a mom to decipher. She says [with relative clarity] applesauce, elbow, knee, toot [heehee], burp, up, down, off, airplane, bear ...... that's all I can think of.

She says excuse me when she burps or needs to get by you. "Peh say" - I don't know how it comes out like that.

She commented the other week that something was pretty without me saying it first - the snowflakes hanging from the library ceiling :)

When we have guests over [our neighbors, my brother..] she likes to show them everything she can think of: mommy! pizza! chair! bear! boots! and then she'll scoot her bottom up and sit in their laps to be read stories. It's really sweet :)

She can put on her boots and hat and take off her coat. Thankfully she hasn't experimented much with taking off her diaper..

She LOVES winnie the pooh and laughs out loud when he's chased by the bees.

She also loves to have the music on and stands by the stereo asking for misi.

Happy half birthday piñola!

*osito de miel

Vera went to the grocery store with me today and among other things we picked up some honey. I said, look Vera, a bear! She took it and literally giggled with delight. She repeated "byeaeaarrr" and hugged, kissed, squeezed and laughed at it all the way home. In the car she was pointing out its eyes, knees, nose and hat [lid] and then showed it her eyes, knees, hood, etc. Seriously, it was pretty cute.

When we got home, a package from Oompa toys had arrived - a little tea set I got for her with some Christmas money [thank you auntie marie!]. She was super-excited to start drinking/pouring water - just as I thought she would.

[obviously needs to work on some skills..]

Later on though, she went back to playing with the honey bear and it got me thinking. I mean we know everyone says this, but kids really don't need fancy toys!! Seriously, some of the most played-with items in our house have consistently been sample-size lotion bottles [i'm not kidding, had an obsession with these since she learned to grasp], pots & spoons and the contents of the recycle bin [we wash everything and keep cans/glass aside]. So I'm not sure what my point is - observation I guess. Because it also is really fun to explore and dream about all the beautiful/fun/worthy toys out there [be careful if you visit oompa, that's all I'll say...]. Not sure where to end this.... I'm not saying I don't want to have toys for Vera! Just some thoughts. Those of you with niños, what are their favorite random household items??

p.s. I just put her to bed. She came running naked from the bath holding the bear. I tried to lose it on the way to her room, but she asked for it again. I didn't want to risk a freak-out so she went to bed clutching it. It's unopened and tightly shut, but I'll check on her later. Just emphasizing that she is really into it :)

*one more christmas present

- taken with the other:

I'm really excited about my new sewing machine!!! Thank you, Mom! She's probably more excited just to see me sewing :) She always tried to get us to make things when we were little - clothes for our dolls and ourselves [very modest ones of course :)]. I rebelled [as always] but am coming 'round again. So far I've made some not-very-square napkins. Really pretty prints though, maybe the recipients won't notice the wavering seamlines? There is just so many ideas out there and so many cute fabrics - I hardly know where to start! Lessons perhaps, I really want to get good at this...