Revivification

Hey there.

We haven't frozen to death up here, and my daughter is still adorable. In case any of you were wondering. :)

Here's a picture from Christmas. This is Ari holding her extremely lifelike kitty that Great-Grandpa Francis sent her- easily one of her favorite presents this year. Boy, did that disturb the hell out of strangers in the airport. They kept thinking it was a real cat that this little girl was dragging around with her.

This is Thad's tattoo. Did I not mention he was getting one? Yup. He's been planning to get one in a serious way for well over a year now. We commissioned Nigel to stylize an aegishjalmur for us, and this is what he came up with. This is the tattoo right after the second session- you can see it's a bit red, and I've just put lotion on it. Mayhap I should have taken the picture before I did that...

Anyway, it's about four or five inches in diameter, in the upper middle of his back. Thad goes in for a touchup at the end of the month, after it's had a chance to heal up.

This is Ari, in the lovely warm outfit her godmother Theresa sent. Ari's pretty fun these days. The other day, we sat on the stoop (it was 70 degrees out!), and she kept pointing things out to me. Like, "dees a birds. birds say, caw caw. deesa birds. deesa two twucks. see? one twuck, two twuck. two twucks."

She can also say "zombiepocalypse", which amuses us no end. I know it's wrong to get my baby to say things just because I think it's funny, but I can't help myself.

She also says "exterminate!" (as previously noted), but that's all her. Oh, and when I put on a TARDIS shirt that Theresa sent me today, she kept pointing at the TARDIS and saying, "Dotta Hoo!" How cool is that?

P.S. Here's some stuff I've been doing:

http://cookbookpartyclub.blogspot.com/
http://daharadreaming.com/ (look at toys>puppets)

The BMV printer was broke

Merry Christmas, and a happy Boxing Day, y'all. :) We had a lovely Christmas here. I've posted a whole set of pictures on the pictures website for your perusal. Ari wasn't much interested in opening presents, but she sure seemed to enjoy playing with them! She's played with and seemed to enjoy pretty much everything she got.

I was a little worried that it would be a bit much for her, opening so many presents at once, but she was fine. I think it helped that we didn't even bother trying to get her to open anything- we just opened them for her, and she got around to playing with them in her own sweet time. :)

As for me, I got the best present ever- a new computer! This one does everything that I want it to, and all fast and spinky. I've done it up in a Batman theme already, and everything. In fact, I've spent most of today playing with it and the printer Thad got to go along with it. Tomorrow, I intend to actually do work.

Thad had a less nice birthday than I wanted, because I was really feeling unwell yesterday. I didn't make him dinner, much less birthday pie. :( He did get steak, at least, though, and we'll try to make him pie later this week.

In any case, here's the movie I whipped up real quick this morning on my spinky fast computer. It's less good resolution than I would like, but I hope y'all enjoy it. I'll try to send better versions to some of you in ye olde snaile maile sometime soon, along with more pictures and vids.

Shedding

I hope all y'all had a great Christmas Eve. :) Ours was pretty low-key, with it just being us, and all. We cleaned up some, and I made Ari a stocking, and we went on a nice walk downtown. It's surprisingly warm for this time of year, here, and the walk was very pleasant.

In this picture, Ari is wearing one of her Christmas presents from Brooke- which is so appropriate to us. Have I mentioned that our games shelf is full? It has no more room.

On our walk, Ari actually stopped traffic. A couple in a truck were waving at her and making faces, and didn't notice the light had changed until Thad pointed it out. Anyway, we walked down to the North Market, where we got pheasant pot pies to bake up for dinner, and some stollen for breakfast from the Austrian bakery, and some delicious ice cream from Jeni's. Ari very much liked the ice cream.

Then, we came home, and baked our pot pies (pheasant and morels, very tasty) and watched a movie, and played a game of Carcassonne. Then, I went and did Super Secret Christmas Stuff in the basement while Thad played with Ari.

Despite getting a late post-walk nap, Ari went to bed at a relatively okay hour, and we just spent time getting the house cleaned up so we have a nice place to have Christmas in. We'd best get to bed soon, so Santa can come. Since no one will see this until tomorrow at the earliest, Merry Christmas, y'all!

Last night

Today, we finally did Christmas cookies (about time, right?). Jaime and Kelly and Rick and Brooke came over to help... we made a batch of gingerbread and a batch of Mom's sugar cookies. I even made green coconut to use. :)

We have an enormous bunch of cookies now... we already gave a plate to our next-door neighbors. They were kind of shocked and happy- I hope they enjoyed them. We have a plate made for the library people and the night staff at Target and Thad's roleplaying group. Now, we just need to figure out something to do with the other three plates of cookies!

Ari is really doing so totally much better. As soon as we took her to the doctor, she perked right up, right? :) Brooke and Rick brought over a whole bunch of presents for her- including some new books, which are always welcome. I think we're planning on hiding a few of her current books after the holidays (for example, Where's Prancer can go to hell, and it can die).

We, on the other hand, seem to have caught whatever it was she had. We've got coughs, sore throats, insomnia, etc... It's not enough to incapacitate us, just enough to make us uncomfortable...


Here's Ari playing with her friend Jaime. :)

Ari wasn't much help with the cookies- in fact, Thad took her out for a walk a few times to get her out of the house- but she was fun anyhow. This is her playing with the fuzzy puzzle that Brooke gave her. For some reason, she kept sticking the cow piece under her chin, and then clapping for herself. Later, she graduated to walking all around with the puzzle piece under her chin(s).

Sometimes, I really wonder what's going on in her head. :)

At long last

This was my baby a few nights ago, trying to pass out asleep under a chair... shortly before she threw up all over Brooke. The last few nights (weeks, really) have been really rough on all of us. This week, Ari's just been fussy and not feeling well all the time- hence my not writing. It's really been quite horrible.

Tuesday night, she was up all night with Thad. Wednesday night, she was up all night with me- plus, she threw up twice. She barely ate solid foods for about three days (yay still nursing!) and has just been clingy and whiny and totally un-fun to be around.

This is a picture from Wednesday night, when she was carrying around a book and trying to hold it to go to sleep. The girl only marginally cares about teddy bears, but she wants to cuddle a book when she's not feeling well. She didn't want me to read it- she just wanted to hold it. She did the same thing on Thursday morning, except with the "Safe Baby Handling Tips" book that Max gave us last year for Christmas.

Last night, she wouldn't pass out until about 1:30 (in the sling with papa, she didn't want me) but she slept like the dead until I had to wake her up to make our doctor's appointment. It was actually supposed to be a well baby visit, with some shots, but clearly that wasn't happening. They checked her over, and said it was probably just a viral thing, and they expected that she'd be better in a week or two (argh)... and then Ari threw up all over Thad as we were getting ready to leave.

Despite the fact that she threw up, and that she barely napped today, by the evening, she was so much better! Better than she's been in ages (aka as long as my sleepless, fogged brain can remember). She was interested in food, and ate a whole bunch of nibblies I got for her. She was cheerful and playful and her old self again! She even fell asleep easily, upstairs, before midnight. Check it out:



This is her dancing to the new CD that her Uncle Darren sent. :D

Well, it's been a busy few days even aside from baby craziness. We've had packages flying in from all over with presents from everybody- the Christmas Crib is now full of shiny things. Oh, and yesterday we had our solstice dinner. Andy, Krista, Ray, Jaime, Kelly, Rick and Brooke all came. I made a turkey, with pear stuffing (for the first day of Christmas, as we're counting it). We also had rosemary garlic mashed potatoes, crab/shrimp things in fillo shells- my first time working with fillo, and it turned out great!- green beans cooked with bacon, oyster mushrooms cooked with roasted garlic and bacon, and Jeff's mother's chocolate pecan pie for dessert. The chocolate pecan pie was much less sweet than I would have expected- it was really delicious. Oh, Jeff made it- it was just his mum's recipe. She lives in Massachusetts, and wasn't making pie for our solstice dinner at all.

After dinner, we played a few games of Carcassonne (Jaime's Yuletide present to me! :D) and generally hung out. It was really lovely, except for Ari not feeling so well... but I'm glad she seems to be doing better! I wasn't sure how much more I could take, quite frankly. :)

Some corn for popping

For once, the time stamp on this post is actually accurate. My baby is asleep... mostly... and it isn't even midnight. Whoo! :D

I say mostly, because she's sleeping kinda fitfully. Having so many teeth come in at once is making her nose run like crazy. It got to the point where she wanted to lie down and nurse to sleep, and she couldn't nurse! She couldn't breathe through her nose long enough. In fact, the only way I could get her to stay asleep upstairs was to have her sleep on a pillow for the first time ever. Having her head more upright seemed to let her breathe a little better.

This is a picture of our Christmas tree. :) We went out to a farm outside of Columbus, and Thad cut it down. We would have had a nice running around and picking it out and all, except that poor Ari passed right out in the car (I think, again, sitting upright let her breathe well enough to nap at long last) so Thad just went out and cut it while I sat in the car and planned my solstice dinner. I quite like it, though.

Putting it in the crib was a stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. Ari can look at it, but not get at it, and it also provides a safe place to put presents. We have to be careful which presents go where in the crib, though- smaller ones, she can fish out through the bars. We figured that out when we suddenly noticed Ari playing with one of her presents across the room... When Christmas is over, I think we shall dismantle the crib until it is needed again.

Oh, poor girl. I can hear her coughing upstairs. But she doesn't seem to be waking up.

Well, I'm'a go put a movie on and start sewing. I have a few personal projects I'd like to work on, in my precious baby free time before I head to bed.

Update!

Well, as previously mentioned, Ari was up till 1:30 in the morning again. She currently has four (count 'em) teeth coming in, including two molars and two incisors, one top and one bottom of each. And this is not even counting the two more molars that are clearly ready to burst forth from her gums at any moment. Yay! She's mostly okay, but her sleep is totally messed up.

Let's see... in the last week, Thad and I went to see the new Bond movie (rock star awesome!). Ari is becoming more verbal- she can do "more" and "eat"... kinda mostly. I'm told that tonight, she was clearly saying "tiptoe tiptoe" along with the Bear Hunt story.

We have spent time trying to get presents done and out- most of you should be getting packages in the mail relatively soon. :) Now, I feel like I can relax and have Christmas. We're going to get a tree tomorrow, and we're going to make cookies on Monday. That means, we have to clean the house before people come over! Yay! It's kind of a mess in the aftermath of present making. Although, at least the basement is clean!

I wrote about this in the entry that got deleted, but I had a great exchange- one of our friends needed some cash moneys for presents, and we needed a non-scary basement and kitchen. Our dollars and her obsessive-compulsive tendencies got together and had a party, and voila! Clean basement! The kitchen is... erm... no longer clean. Let us say. Best investment of dollars ever!

Here is Ari, building a tower of dice. I'm told she was able to build it four dice high, which is pretty impressive. The woman holding her is Kelly, she who cleaned the basement. She is Jaime's new lady, and gets on with Ari wonderfully. Ari likes to make her read the same book over and over and over and over and over... come to think of it, she likes to make everyone read her the same book over and over and over. :) Kelly is just willing to do it. Well, and so is Brooke.

Brooke watched her while we saw Bond, and poor Miss Brooke had to read the Good Night Butterflies book upwards of 37 times, I hear.