Our baby turns two

Anna turned two years old on the 22nd of October. Wow, has she (and we) ever come a long way from when she was born in hot, hot Santa Cruz. Those first two months of her life were pretty rough, as we struggled with thrush, feeding, sleeping, and generally how to do life with two little ones. That makes it sound so negative, but the reason I remember it is to point out how very, very grateful we are to have her and to be at such a happier point in life!

Here she is on her second birthday and a year ago on her first. She doesn't speak much yet, but she can say "two!" when asked how old she is. Demonstrating it with fingers is...not quite so convincing yet.

This lucky girl got to have a birthday party with both sets of grandparents for the second year in a row!

Here she eats super efficiently with new toy dishes and cutlery.

And the highlight: blowing out those two candles!

Anna is quite the spunky, opinionated and creative two year old. A few vitals include:

Height/weight: she'll probably be about 5'4" when she's fully grown, probably weigh about 60 pounds at that point. But they will be enough to propel her full-force through life.

Eating: still lots of cheese and yogurt, as well as craisins, grapes, chili, ice cream, dry noodles, corn, granola bars, and ice cream.

Sleeping: this really goes in cycles. About a month ago she was doing great - easy to fall asleep, solid nap after lunch for about 2-2.5 hours, and a night from about 7.30pm-6.00am. Then Daylight Savings Time - that foe of little toddlers - hit, and we've been struggling ever since. The latest, latest she'll sleep is until 5.30am, but 4.30 is much more common. From then on it's a steady chorus of "mommy, mommy, mommy, daddy, daddy, daaaaddy." Her afternoon nap is now maybe 1-1.5 hours long, and putting her to sleep is much harder; and then there are the frequent night wakings. The compounding factor is that she's been more or less sickly for the last two weeks. Ugh.

What is nice is what a chipper force she is from the moment she wakes up, particularly in the mornings. She attacks life in those early hours, and when I have enough mate in my stomach, I can begin to appreciate how really well and creatively she plays, even in Jonathan's absence.

Talking: I'm pretty sure Anna is not up to 50 words yet. She is, however, pretty creative about using the 20 or so (of both languages) that she does know - though it takes some patience to try to understand her. It's pretty clear to us that she's not "slow," but rather stubborn about what she will and will not do - including speak in our words!

Drawing: Anna is way more into drawing with pens and markers than J. ever was. Any paper gets covered with her doodles, and alas, also doll faces, coffee table, and one little patch of wall (hidden behind the curtain, luckily).

[One year ago]

The fate of any not-first child is to be compared to, or at least evaluated in light of, their sibling(s). It really is hard to imagine what Anna would be like without the (strong) influence of her older brother. He decides what they will do and how, directs the imaginary play, and generally dictates her life. [I grew up the same way, thank you Willmar]. Sure they fight and intentionally irk each other, but we're very happy with how well they get on together and look out for each other.

Anna has been going to "school" (ECFE) with Jonathan every Monday morning, and she loves it! It's mainly doing creative projects and playing (with a gazillion toys) with the moms and other kids, and then some only-kid time when the moms meet apart. At first she was pretty hesitant for me to leave (per her usual), but now it's no problem at all. She claps her hands when we talk at home about going to ECFE.

We're working on potty training. So far she does pretty well - as long as I put her on the toilet. Problem is she has to pee every 10 minutes or so, and we tend to forget to go. So lots of accidents, but no real pressure either.

Physically Anna seems to resemble Grandma Schrock (and her cousin Sophie) more than anyone else. She's extremely agile and coordinated - loves trikes, jumping off the couch, (almost) doing somersaults, dancing to music, running across the yard, gathering eggs, saying good-bye to Susie and Sally and to every human, too.

One of the things we say most often about this little girl is "Anna is such a character." Hard to put her into words. But we are so very thankful to have her.

Hooray for Grandparents!

This morning ended one of the best of weeks...Grandma and Grandpa Schrock were here visiting from Virginia. We didn't do all that much (anything?) out of the ordinary, but it was so good to have them take part in what we do every day.

Such as give horsey rides through the kitchen.

And read book, after book, after book...

[Yawn...when will you all be ready for church already?]

...after book.

Grandpa Schrock finished a project Ramont's been thinking about for a long time: a front fence for the future barnyard. All it needs now is a coat of bright white paint.

The kids loved showing off (among other things), the eggs. Lately we've been getting anywhere from 3 to 6 eggs a day from our nine hens.

Only every once in a while does an egg break in the excitement. Yesterday was such a day.

Look, Grandpa and Grandma! Six eggs!

We sure will miss this.

Waiting for the grandparents to come

Lots of wheelin' and dealin'

Well no, just lots of wheelin' going on around our yard these last days. Jonathan has a "new big tractor" (old big tricycle borrowed from a friend), which has been getting a lot of mileage - as have all the many other wheels he also has on his bauernhof (aka garage).

One morning I found Anna on the (also borrowed) bicycle; she had pulled a stool beside it and gotten up herself. Jonathan was more than happy to push her all around the yard.

Problem is, they both really like going really fast. So a few minutes after this photo, which I witnessed through our kitchen window, was Jonathan pushing her as fast as he could run around the gravel circle. And, to no one's surprise, she wiped out good (as in, still spitting up gravel at suppertime). But, right back in the saddle.

Sunday came at a really good time this week :) We all took longggg naps in the afternoon, after a long week of combining (that explains Ramont's nap, at least).

And now it's been cold and rainy for the last two days.

Which doesn't stop these little farmers...this afternoon, in the 45-degree drizzle, they were digging around in muddy puddles in the driveway, happy as little pigs.

Otherwise, not that much going on so far this week - besides three more gallons of applesauce made this morning with my mom (!!), free firehats at the weekly ECFE class yesterday, bringing in the last things from the garden (except squash and carrots) and barn pen-making for the cows.

This chica will turn two next week, and Jonathan determined today that her birthday cake should be a Gator (JD four-wheeler-type vehicle). Probably no.

Also next week will be...Grandma and Grandpa Schrock!!

We're back!

Our involuntary internet-outage is over.

For the archives (harvest)

Here are a few more photos from the second day of combining this year. I'll try to come up with a new topic for the next post (endless kid photos? Oh wait, we've had that already). And yes, that is GMO corn.

Here we were combining on the "Ewert field," near Delft. It's absolutely beautiful with all the hills and creek - Susan, Sonya and I used to go camping here when we were in high school.

I made my seasonal debut driving truck....love, love, love it! Thanks to mom for watching the childrens while I got to think my own thoughts for a few hours.

Ramont also drove truck, but was gracious enough to let me have the red one rather than the blue beast.

The pace wasn't TOO strenuous.

Here we go!

The last day of September brought the first day of combining. Here my dad works on the corn field at the home place...

while Ramont hauled away loads, including in the new-old semi-truck.

Meanwhile Jonathan almost couldn't remember to keep breathing while waiting for the combine to get to this side of the field and pick him up. This is what he's been waiting for for the last year.

And here's my little helper with all things milk-related. We've been getting rid of our daily gallon from Susie quite well, between us and others drinking it, butter, yogurt, yogurt cheese, and ricotta. Here we're heating it for yogurt...

while this is yogurt being drained of whey for yogurt cheese. Quite delish on bread with tomato and basil.

Plumb-tired out from all that effort.