My morning sunshine...

Mr. Independiente

This guy has been Mr. Independent lately. After I have a go brushing his teeth, he likes to do it him self.He wields this stool like a champ, whipping it into whatever corner it might be needed to climb up and see. He is officially in charge of getting himself water when he wants it.
His language continues to change rapidly. I will miss the laughing about him saying, "I want to press the butts on the peter." (buttons on the computer) or "foon" (spoon) or the million other little ways his language reminds us he is still a baby even though he is getting so big and independent.

Matching Sweaters

Remick and his Dad have matching sweaters, which is pretty awesome. I have of late decided that in fact Remick has my personality. He is entirely pissed off that he can't crawl. And he does sort of come close and scoot around sort of, but in his estimation it needed to happen five minutes ago and it is entirely too slow! Impatience that sort of sounds like me...He's in a real mama phase at the moment, and whines and cries if I set him down, like to go to the bathroom for example. He has been sleeping quite a bit better, waking once or twice a night. Until pretty recently, he would be easy to put back to sleep, but all of a sudden, it now seems to take him forever! This is on the agenda of things to address!
He's pretty cute.

Old Friends

I was lucky enough to get a visit from my friend Emma and her mom over Xmas break. It was great. She was great. It's so fun to see your friends grow and change and to think about the people that we once were.

Today He Made Me Laugh

This is my little engine man right after Christmas with his entire car/tractor collection. It is a bit disgusting, I admit, but what can you do with so many generous aunts and uncles and grandmas and grandpas, and friends, and Santa. It all adds up you know! (We are currently secretly rotating them for sanity's sake.)

Anyway this guy has been cracking me up today. My day started out kind of rough - scrubbing Remick's poop out of my sheets. Yeah, that's a rough start. My day also included picking up a waterproof mattress pad too, btw. Anyway, I was prepared for a rotten day, but it turned out to be a good one. Makili has been making me laugh all day.

While at Annma and Paka's over Xmas, he saw the movie "Cars" which as you can imagine was a hit. Paka promptly went and bought it for him and it has been on nonstop up there since. I finally had to pull the plug after 48 straight hours of Cars. Anyway, now that we're home, he's really been talking about Cars a lot, and today, he looked around and said, "Where'd the TV go?" As if we'd ever had one!

Later he starts walking around picking things up saying "I want our house to be clean." Of course, I'm thinking, "BE MY GUEST!"

And later, he asked for mango, even though it wasn't fully ripe. I cut it up for him and put the long slices into a bowl. They weren't juicy, so he went and laid in the bed with the bowl on his stomach lazily savoring each slice, saying, "This is good..."

He's so damn cute.

Ploy Isabella Huber

Ploy was born on December 27, 2009. (Better late than never with the pics...sorry Ariel!)

Reflections and Hopes

I have so much to post at the moment, and my Dad gives me a hard time if I go a few days with no posting, but I really wanted to pause and think about this last year and what I look ahead to in 2010. I had hoped to put on a slideshow from 2009, but I have too much on my plate at the moment, so instead, here are a few pictures of our snowy hike yesterday. Raph and I decided that we wanted to start 2010 off outside as a family, so we did a mile hike. Makili hiked about 1/4 of it and got a sled ride for the rest. Our family picture turned out a little blurry and without much Remick. Oh well. Makili and Remick both fell asleep, and yes there was a bit of whining and crying at the beginning, but ultimately we had a great time and it was beautiful.




In the car yesterday, Raph and I discussed our "highlights of 2009." I know I'm forgetting some, but I thought I record a few. In no particular order.

Highlights of 2009:

• Remick's birth (duh!) - we both have fond memories of the midwife and the nurses on call and having many people visit us. More than anything the elation the moment he was born.
  
• Getting to spend a month with my niece, Brittany, who came to help us out after Remick was born. Specifically swimming in the tidal water at Crocket Neck and Newfound Lake in NH. Making ceramic frames with her. Watching her pitch with the Matty's. Playing soccer with her. Raph watching the storm approach with her in Bramford. Hiking Rattlesnake Mtn with Brittany and Ann.
  
• Christmas - skating on the pond, Makili's excitement
• Makili swimming in a pool for the first time for his 2nd bday.
  
• Raph new job, which has been a terrific fit thus far
• Soccer - Raph and I have both begun playing in a league and that has been wonderful for both of us.
• The Beal convergence in Maine in October. Meeting Luke and Faith.
  
• Our annual Fourth of July party - wild weather and so many family and friends we love (and good Beal representation!)
• Watching Makili delight in dumping water on my Dad's feet over and over again at Fort Foster.
• The Tobey Family Reunion at the barn where Raph's great great grandfather worked and lived.
• Completing the greenhouse and getting the pile of building materials and trash out of the driveway!
• Feverishly "making" for the craft fair at the beginning of December.
• Potting and repotting 297 tomato seedlings with Tim and Tamara (even if they all got wiped out by the blight)
• Bagels. Ann's bagels specifically.
• Terrific success with garlic, potatoes, leeks, onions, and brussel sprouts. And raspberries and pears.
  
• Trip to New Orleans in March, a place I'd always wanted to go!
• Playing late-night bananagrams in The Friendly Toast with Ethan and his girlfriend Christina.
  
• Taking 25 exchange students skiing last Feb. (and we're gearing up to do it again!)
• Drinking loads of sun tea and soaking up family love in Bramford in August.
• Sharing many amazing meals with Tim and Tamara, godparents.
• Having Makili get to spend a big block of time with my mom while she was here waiting for Remick's birth. Specifically I can just picture the two of them in the pouring rain in their rain coats, Makili jumping in puddles, and my mom soaking wet in her non-waterproof coat.
  
• Playing in the tidepools at York Beach with the McCall clan.
• Makili's tractor costume. Trickortreating with the Masterson's. The outdoor train set-up was pretty great.
  
• Meeting my newest (not for long!) niece, Kaylee.
• The ultimate frisbee competition, with custom designed frisbees, in Arkansas, last Feb.
• Watching Larry share his love of tractors, and engines in general, with Makili.
• Watching Makili's language unfold.
• Playing with Kane in the leaves at the Weyant's house in November.
  
• Placing 16 exchange students.
• Larry changing a poopy diaper.
• Seeing John and Gwen, Hawaii friends, in November. We're really making a plug that they move back East!!!
  
• Being present at the 4th annual Blackpointe Chowdafest. Sitting on the rocks in the sun with good friends - Camille, Emma, Becky. Seeing Camille and Pascal together.
  
• Running a 5k for the first time.
• Kayaking to the lighthouse with Raph and Makili.
  
• Meeting Raph's cousin's newest baby this week - Ploy Isabella Huber (pix to come.)

This list grew as I started typing it, and could probably grow more, but I need some sleep. So the "goals for 2010" will have to wait until tomorrow.

Scenes from our holiday

There was excitement.Too many tractors.

Overstimulation and sleep.
Homemade (balls in this case)
Food in this case (again, not as cool as that fruit Sarah and Eric gave him that he can "cut")

Reusable Wrapping - I made close to 75 little Christmas bags (a lot were bigger than this...) because Raph and I had a long conversation about how wasteful Xmas is with the wrapping paper alone. And I had just mastered the drawstring bag with a gift not pictured (resuable produce bags), so I hunkered down in the 3 or 4 days leading up to Xmas and stayed up way too late to finish off a huge pile of little bags. We needed a few more (we're talking stockings here) but I figure we can add more each year. THey worked out great though and were really beautiful...

Vintage (thanks mom for the cool lego cars)
Big bellies (rumor has it that a baby entered this world last night - we're waiting for word!)
AND lots of HOCKEY







That would be me lying down on the ice. It was that much fun!

Two and a Half!

As of today, Makili is officially two and a half! Already! He is a joy. A sweetheart. A love. I can't believe how the time flies.

He is such a little man these days (until you tell him he can't have the tractor or something and he melts into a pile of hysterical sobbing on the floor - then not so manly.) He communicates everything, and uses phrases daily that I didn't even know he knew. He'll say "I'm excited about this excavator." or "You're making me crazy." (no idea where he got that?) He is getting really good at, "May I please have a _____?" If asking normally doesn't work he rephrases it that way and tries again.He is still completely. and totally. TRACTOR OBSESSED! Here you see him modeling the tractor towel I made him for Xmas which we opened a bit early. I have learned so much more about tractor than I ever hoped to. I'm really tired of reading tractor non-fiction books too. When will he move on?
Makili's favorite thing to do in the snow is to have me draw tractors. He likes to go outside, but really only if I go with him. He has gotten quite needy all of a sudden this week. We went to a Xmas eve party tonight and he practically had to hold my hand the whole time. He freaked out (and cried) when "Santa" showed up. He has been hesitant about a lot of things lately - ice skating for example. He talks a lot about doing it, but when the time comes, he is not so confident. He is funny though because he knows when we want him to do something and will tell us, "I'll do it tomorrow." For example, "I'll poop on the potty tomorrow." or "I'll blow my own nose tomorrow." (These would be conversations with Raph, fyi.)
I can't believe in all my recent pictures of him I don't have a single one of his radiant smile. I'm going to have to work on that. In any case, he seems to be growing a lot recently too. He has just about lost his toddler belly and is growing into a kid body. Boo hoo. (Thankfully, Remick has a whole lot of belly left.)
Makili continues to love puzzles and be awesome at them. I can tell him (sometimes) to go do a puzzle and he'll get out one of his 24 piece puzzles and do it himself (too fast) and say, "I did it!" He also continues to be super-coordinated. He is awesome at soccer (confirmed by several sources not related to us!) and loves to try to hit a ball (we have a whiffle ball tied to a tree that he hits frequently.) It is a daily battle to get him to not throw things in the house.

I could write a book about my big guy, but alas it is Xmas Eve and there is work to do! Here is our little Xmas corner in our tiny house. It looks a bit different now, with stockings overflowing and all...

Stealing Some Thunder.

We had a lovely visit last weekend with Raph's cousin Sarah, her husband Eric, and her parents George and Bunny. They gave Makili the coolest gift, which to be honest sort of stole my thunder for his hand-made gift (you'll see soon enough) , but how can you compete with cool fruit that you can cut.We had a great little visit as most of the East Coast got hammered with snow. Ann and Larry didn't get any. We probably got 4 inches, thus ending our snow-free period.




Anyway, it was great to see them. (Sarah and Eric, we're keeping our fingers crossed for you.)