Rootin' n' Tootin'

Kinley hit her five week mark today, which according to sienna's book, means that if she were a mouse she would be fully grown and covered in fur. She's 30-35% larger than she was last month. This is because she is a determined little lass that works far harder than anyone else in this family. She works through the night, only takes intermittent breaks, and screams murder if you interrupt her. Oh, and by doing her work I mean feeding. Don't mess!

oooohhhhhh, whass dat?

She continues to amaze us each day. For example, today, she slept for a notable period of time not in someone's arms. Astounding! It was the first time, and allowed the rest of the family to paint some pictures. She also first noticed the bears on one of her chairs.  She tracks well and continues to be quite alert, but this was perhaps the first time she wasn't just looking at someone's face.  Today also marked my going back to school. I rode my bike today for the first time since she was born (and I can no longer go up the hill to get home). Momma got a taste of what it's like to be alone with the kids. We've somewhat been dreading this (well, I have), because we're all-hands-on-deck busy, and I had no idea how laura would do alone. Luckily, she's recovered very well over all, and said today went very well. They went to the playground, which also marked kinley's first trip in a stroller. she slept. sienna kept her hands to herself.

Unfortunately, the little ones are sick right now. coughing mostly, but also diarrhea, stuffy nose, and general feeling awful (sienna seems to have it worse than kinley). I would like to personally thank the youtube universe for its assistance on this matter. Last night, sienna was repeatedly woken up by her coughing, often not being able to breath. In the monitor I could her her breathing laboredly, and starting to cry, before erupting in coughs. She was trying to suppress the cough, scared of what it would bring. I can relate. So sad. At one point, Laura said it sounded like croup, and I wasn't sure, so we ran outside into the cold air to calm her airway. After looking at the stars for a few minutes, sienna calmly said, "can we go inside, Dada?" Anyway, the youtubes...we promptly looked up croup cough on the youtubes and decided that she didn't have croup (yet), and we all went back to bed.

I don't know how you take a good picture in a seattle winter.

Seems like kinley is finally starting to figure out the day/night thing. Well, sorta. it's off and on, and I'm trying to be optimistic. But it's taken a while, though I guess I could see why considering the days are like two hours long, it's always raining so with kids it's hard to spend more than thirteen minutes outside before their hands fall off, and you need to carry a headlamp with you all the time, even during the day. Frankly, I'm having a hard time with the day/night thing, too.

funny. Sienna liked playing soccer with uncle graeme. She was running
around and then just sorta stopped. Don't know if she was tired, or
if she wasn't sure how she liked about being coached.

christmas booty. sienna did well. here showing her friends from maine

Here we see laura's high grade filter in action, turning beer into milk.

Luckily, we've had lots of visitors from all over the country over the last month. They've been super helpful, super fun, and super awesome (!). Although, as I'm writing this I'm realizing that I don't know that I got a single picture with auntie katie. nuts.

super psyched!

where's kinley?

We went to the mountains and made snow animals.
Snow angels first, then snow snakes. Then we made
snow camels, snow lions, and snow giraffes. turns out
snow snakes are the easiest.

For those of you not on the facebooks:

those are tomato top eyes, and note lil kinley below sienna in the middle
(sienna said I was the stubby one on the left, momma the big one on the right)