Selah at 19 months

I meant to do a post about her turning a year and a half - but we did a quick less than 24 hour trip to Santa Barbara for our friends' annual New Years party and then Finn had a birthday...yada yada yada. You get the idea. So here she is, at 19 months now, our precious little handful.



This is Selah exactly one year ago


And here she is now. In the past year, she has completely transformed from "baby" to "little girl".


*Selah likes to color, on everything.


*She's into shoes big time. Taking them off, putting them on, wearing everyone else's.


*She's a talker. She is exploding with language right now. Though, she sometimes seems a little dyslexic. When she talks fast she has been known to call herself Lisa instead of Selah and calls a kiwi a "weeky". She's so cute. Finn is "Thin", Grandma Summy is simply "Summy". She can name nearly all the animals in a book we have, though if you didn't know her, you might not understand her.


*She loves books. Currently she is glued to "Polar Bear Polar Bear What do you Hear?" She can recite some of it on her own now - real words mixed with mumbles. Finn was particularly drawn to that book too when he was this age.

*She sleeps ALL the way through the night now.... and so do I, ever since I weaned her a month ago. Yay!

*She has always had a strong personality, and now that she's talking, she'll let us know EXACTLY what she wants and when she wants it. The other morning, I brought her to bed with me in the morning, hoping she'd sleep in with me for another 1/2 hour. She laid on my pillow for about 5 seconds and then sprang up and said in a booming voice, "Mama! Get up! Oatmeal! Oatmeal!"


*She LOVES Dora the Explorer and all the characters in the show, Backpack, Map, Boots, and Swiper. We don't have cable but we do have a few VHS videos, so the kids have seen the same Dora episode a million times now. They don't seem to mind.

*She likes baby dolls, pretend cooking, pushing a chair over to the sink so she can help, pulling all the books off the bookshelves, singing and teasing her brother by getting dangerously close to his train set.

Selah is feisty and fun, smart and silly, cute and cuddly and all together tough as nails. I'm excited to see what she'll do next. We love our Selahbob.

snip snip!

Happy Birthday to Finn!

Finn turned 4 yesterday. After the long night of coughing, sniffling and low-grade fevers, we decided to postpone the big party for Finn that we had planned for the day. It was the right decision. He spent most of the day in his pajamas and did little more than just lay on the couch or the floor all day....slowly pushing around a small train on his new birthday train set. Poor Finn.


Here's the train cake that I hope will survive a week in the freezer.



Finn has been such a joy to us. He's such a fun little guy, and like some of my family members say...he marches to the beat of his own drum.

As a 4 year old, Finn...

*spends hours daily just talking talking talking in his make believe world of whatever scenario he has made up at the time....church, preschool, trains, planes and skyscrapers that talk or make believe lands like the planet "zark". (We are soooo happy that he has seemed to drop his alter-ego "Bumbo" the freshwater snail. Bumbo had a very whiny voice and was banned from many outings. Adios Bumbo.)

* is getting more gutsy. the first thing he will want to show you when you come over to our house is the different ways he can jump on his new bed or climb high on the play structure.


*defines things by their "place" now. That's a Santa Barbara thing, and that happened in Woodland, and that friend is from Yuba City. I'm glad he's keeping all of it straight, because sometimes I can't.

*loves peanut butter, and acts like I have cut his left arm off if I make him eat something different for lunch.

*is almost done taking naps. Almost.

*still LOVES books. Favorites are Richard Scary, Dr. Seuss, Curious George, and anything with tractors and trucks.

*doesn't yet care much for art....unless it's performing arts! He has taken up drumming lately, thanks to Uncle Josh's kit which we are happily babysitting for him. (thanks Josh!)


*loves story-telling. That is, he loves it when Nate and I make up stories for him at bedtime. Nate started this (Nate has a gift of storytelling) adding a different chapter every night. We take turns with every other chapter, which means we end up making a game of it, getting our characters into odd situations that the other person will then have to get them out of. Finn enjoys it and so do we.

*loves preschool. He adores Ms. Anita and will forego all of the table activities that are set up each day and just play with a puzzle or read with Ms. Anita.


*is very polite usually. Recently another mom at preschool asked if we could get together for a playdate because she wanted her son to be around Finn because he was so well behaved. That was so nice to hear.

*has a new 4 year old hair cut now! (stay tuned for pics)

We love you Finnegan Jack!

Blooper Reel!

A Wicked Weekend!

GIRL'S WEEKEND! Woo hoo! It's been so fun having my sister (and her four kids and hubbie) visiting from Kentucky. My sisters and mom and I decided the best way to catch up was to get outta town. We spent a night away in SF and it was so fun! We ate good Thai food, window shopped and walked around enjoying the Christmas decorations still up in the city. Oh...and we saw WICKED!

If you haven't seen Wicked yet....go see it RIGHT NOW! It's so good! I might be a tad bit partial to this musical in particular because one of my long-time friends from Yuba, Marcie Dodd is currently the lead in the National tour of the show, as Elphaba, the green witch....and she's amazing. I saw her in the LA production and since then she's gone on to play the role in NY on Broadway and now the tour. (shout out to Marcie!) The cast in San Francisco was equally awesome.

This is a shot of our hotel room view. When I noticed that there was no screen on the slightly opened window, my mom promptly backed away from the glass and never got within 10 feet of it again.

Christmas Recap

I love Christmas! We spent a lot of time with family before and after Christmas, but decided to do Christmas morning just the four of us in our new house - starting a new tradition. I thought I should come up with a yummy Christmas morning breakfast idea - cinnamon buns from scratch. Sounds good, huh? Our Christmas Eve was comical. After returning from Christmas Eve Mass in Yuba City with my family, we drove home late, woke Finn up to put out the reindeer food that he made in preschool and the cookies for Santa and shuffled the kids off to bed. Nate and I were up until SO late, wrapping presents for our gift exchange the next day with family. I had to make an 11:30pm drive to our local 7-11 (the only place open in the entire world) for milk and eggs, essential cinnamon bun ingredients. We just sort of chuckled as Nate was ...assembling.... and I was kneading dough at midnight. It was just funny...All very worth it of course, as we watched Finn and Selah experience the magic of Christmas the next day....I mean, a few hours later. (Once a crammer, always a crammer I guess.)

Christmas Song Sing-Off 2009!

Well, my training paid off. After 3+ weeks of listening to non-stop Christmas music, one caroling party, one Christmas Eve choir rehearsal and many car rides with a toddler belting out "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", I can finally declare my victory over Nate in the 2009 Christmas Song Sing-Off! Yahooooo!

This has been a tradition for a few years now. One year while we were making the 7 hour drive up North for the holidays we came up with this game. We just take turns singing Christmas songs until someone can't think of one. It's that simple. Last year we came up with 86 songs! Here are our rules and guidelines:

* You HAVE to be able to sing at least 10 words of the song in a row for it to count.

* I swear we used to accept instrumental songs, if you could hum the whole thing, but Nate barred that this year. (bit of a Scroodge if you ask me. There goes Mannheim Steamroller and The Nutcracker.)

* It's more fun when you sing back-up for each other. We always go a little nuts during the Little Drummer Boy and Carol of the Bells.

* It's also more fun when you put your back into it. Don't just sing "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, sing Jessica Simpson's version - all breathy and whiney! Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" is a toughy though. I always look forward to Nate belting out Jackson Five's "I Saw Mama Kissing Santa Claus."

* Not EVERY song they've been playing on the Christmas music station counts in OUR game. Like....Bette Midler's "From a Distance" or "These Are a Few of My Favorite Things." Those don't count. And I cannot STAND Rod Stewart's version of that song.

*Songs you sang in your 4th grade Christmas program count...if you can remember them. But be strategic about it, save those for later in the game. The real doozy about this game is that Nate now knows songs from MY childhood and now uses them against me. This year HE used "Christmas is a Time to Love" from MY childhood Christmas record. (He plays dirty)

Good luck and have fun! See if you can beat 86! This year we only came up with 75. But we did it during a 2 hour drive to visit friends in Santa Rosa. **Ooh, I just remembered that we missed "Walkin in a Winter Wonderland"! Dang it!

Merry Christmas! Happy Singing!

A Message from SANTA!

Now here's a sign of our time...yesterday Finn got an email from Santa with a video message. Finn's eyes were WIDE the whole time, and he was nodding to Santa when he asked a question. It was awesome. (Thanks for the idea Lindsay!)

Click below to see it....and perhaps you or your kids can get a message too! **Warning, my dad got one today and ended up on Santa's naughty list! Luckily, Santa's message to my dad was one of hope.**

Santa's message to Finn!

A Message from Finn

Horn of Plenty

We have much to give thanks for this year. We feel so blessed to be employed, have a beautiful new home, we are healthy, we have wonderful friends, we are close to loved ones, we are happy.
Gracias a Dios!

When we returned from SB, we hosted Nate's siblings and their spouses (spice?) at our new digs for the night. We all (almost all) joined the other 31,000 Sacramentonians in the Run to Feed the Hungry, the biggest turkey trot in the country.....probably the world, since most other countries don't celebrate t-day. It was fun. We parked far away, we walked a ways to get there, we arrived late, we met up with friends and cousins, we couldn't move, we squeezed through people, and we ditched Nate with the double stroller that was too fat to get through. Poor Nate.


I love Monley Thanksgivings. It's a 30+ person shindig usually, and there's just an overall sound of laughter and joy throughout the day. These ladies are awesome. I'm so thankful for the family I married into.


Tia Lina with the kiddos


The three little ones playing in the drive. Maybe next year there will be more little ones - who knows!


We enjoyed a quick visit with "GG", great grandma Kellogg.

Oh Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree!

We've never had a Christmas tree...in 7 years of marriage we've never had a tree. We always leave for Christmas and enjoy our parents' trees. Not this year! We were determined to chop down our own tree. And.....we didn't have to go far.



The previous owners thought it would be lovely to have two nice redwood trees in the front yard. I disagree. I love redwoods, but someday this little guy is going to be a gargantuan monster, dropping needles everywhere. If a tree is going to sacrifice itself for the sake of Christmas, it might as well be this one. (Plus, I'm really looking forward to planting a nice maple or a beech tree in its place.)



Big strong man carry tree!


Nothin but a stump now.



Since this is the first time we have really been able to decorate for Christmas we decided to do it right after Thanksgiving. We waist no time. I love my husband, he's so.....festive! He woke up Saturday with one mission.....to get our home fully decorated for Christmas. It started with the tree, and it just went from there. I've got as much holiday spirit as the next person, but it's not even December yet! I went along with it. We worked all day, shopping, chopping and hanging and unpacking, with non-stop holiday music in the background and eggnog in hand. We're all set now. Ho ho ho.