...and baby makes 4

Wow y'all. Has it really been over 5 months since I blogged? I guess it does feel like it's been a long time. Life got busy. I'll try to sum it up quickly.

1. Gianna is now 18 months old. She is the most fun. Except when she throws a tantrum and throws herself on the floor and goes "boneless" (a la Trixie in Knufflebunny). Not so much then. Particularly when it's on the floor of church in line for the Eucharist.
2. Chris and I turned 27 in March.
3. We went on vacation to Arizona (and Chris took a course with THE Cody Lundin) and Las Vegas.

4. Chris has a semi-successful summer garden...things grew, but not a whole lot of produce. 3 butternut squash, a cantaloupe, a few jalapenos, a good number of tomatoes, so far. He's very faithful and learning a lot.

heirloom tomato...sorry for the blurry pic. 

5. We bought a chicken coop off craigslist! Next step: build fence so our garden doesn't get attached. Last step: chickens!

6. And, duh, I'm sure you figured out by the title, Rendall Baby #2 in currently baking! We're so excited. My "due date" is March 9th....Chris's birthday. Who knows what will happen though; Gianna was a week early. Hopefully this time Chris doesn't have the flu.

 It's like looking at me from the nose down as a toddler, and Chris from the nose up. 

 I know. I know. She's a heart killer. Just soooooooooak it all in. 

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I'm planning to do another post on this pregnancy (kind of cool story, y'all), kind of like I did with Gianna (see: How Baby Rendall Came to Be), but it will be SO. Much. Shorter. I promise.
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Before I let this post get insanely long to make up for lost time, here are some of my current favorite things about Gianna, plus random pictures and videos:

1. She loves to say ALL THE WORDS. Not really "all" but she tries to say so many things I love it. She's REALLY into this box set of Baby Einstein books that Chris's mom bought for G in Las Vegas. We can't go anywhere without one of them. My favorite is the animal sounds book. Her rooster is the best. thing. ever. Kitty cat is second best because it has a matching face. 

2. Gianna loves to dance. We found a new great pandora station with a combo of folksy music and folk renditions of classical pieces I think it's called J.S.Bach The Brandenburg Concertos and we jam every day. Obviously...this is NOT folk music jamming in the below video... 

3. Anytime someone says "I" or "eyes" Gianna bats her eyes. Love it. 

4.  Gianna is in love with her ducky. He goes everywhere with us. She feeds him, rocks him, and puts him to sleepy. It's the sweetest thing ever. She gets embarrassed when I say ducky wants milk (to nurse) and it cracks me up. 

 She also loves this Stevia extract bottle....no clue y'all...she's never ever tasted stevia...

 

5. Just. This.

A laugh to start your weekend off right :-)

Thank God it's Friday!

But ohhhhhh, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday. Where did we go wrong? We're about to get real, here and talk about toddler poop, so...yeah.

It all started when I took Gianna's diaper off around 4:30 pm on Wednesday.

She had a little bit of a rash, so I decided to just let her go diaper free (fresh air > diaper ointment). She was already a huge mess from an "art project" we did that involved paint (OMG SUCH A MISTAKE! More on that next week...), so my plan was to plop her in the tub pretty soon anyway.

MISTAKE!

All of a sudden, Gianna has pooped on her room rug.

I don't really freak out, but just think yikes and hmmm good healthy consistency (yeah because that's normal...) and pick her up and put her on the changing table. Then I look down.

OH NO. There is poop on the carpet too! It's on the bottom of my sock!

I look back at the rug and notice another small poop ball that must have dropped from her butt right before I picked her up! And I stepped in it! And then proceeded to take 2 more steps!

I stripped my sock off and carefully navigated Gianna to her crib so that I could gather my army of cleaning supplies to tackle the poo-mageddeon on the floor. She begins screaming that she's being left alone, of course, while I scrub the floor and pick up the...pieces. Yikes on that pun.

Mind you, she's still diaperless.

After cleaning up, we head to the tub. I've called Chris to tell him the story (which is pretty funny, in all honesty), but have to get off the phone quickly so I can fill the tub (it's quite loud on the phone). Aaaand 2 minutes later, Chris received the following message:

Happy Friday, everyone!

10 Peeks into our Week, 1 year old edition! (#12)

Gianna turned 1 on January 21st! It was a wonderful weekend, my mom and sister, Breana, came up to visit. I made a special allergy free coconut chocolate cake with whipped chocolate coconut cream frosting. It was delicious and absolutely whole food baked from scratch. (And, may I say...easy?). Gianna cracked us up with her cake antics (she'd never had any real amount of sugar, besides from fruit, before, so the raw honey really freaked her out I think)

Here is a bit of her first cake experience, along with our Happy Birthday renditions for your listening pleasure...(sorry about the sideways video at the end.....our video tech works for free ;-)

 

And a few minutes later...
 

Pretty much cracks me up, this girl. She's so civil with the cake.

She got a backyard swing, new clothes, stacking toys, a read in the dark book, her very own mei tei babycarrier, birthday money, and a ball from the Dollar Tree. Her favorite? Ball from the Dollar Tree. I didn't want to tell my mom "I told you so"...but...proof is in the pudding!

My future baby wearer

 
She just looks sooooooooo cute when she's walking around with her baby!

 

 Classic

1. One year old Gianna is so flipping cool. We have the best time. She's more snuggly and lets us give her kisses. She runs around everywhere. Her zany little personality is shining even more. She's trying to say lots of words and really communicate. She's just in general at the peak of her adorable-ness, in our opinions.

 I mean, honestly. Peak. Of. Adorable. Please excuse me while I drool over my daughter's beauty.

She does silly things like this

And walks around like this

And let's face it, it doesn't get much better than a 10 minute trip to the mailbox

2. We've been working on putting things "in". She's getting pretty stinking good at it and I love that she is proud of herself.

Enter upcycled containers and extra clothespins from our old laundry line. 5 minutes of entertainment and learning. Blam. Free.

Recycled paper towel tube and Dollar Tree pom poms.

Our most difficult challenge yet...the Piggy Bank. I let her try to put a few coins in every day. Sometimes she'll get one, mostly not. But she's getting way more accurate with her attempts and I love to watch her work.

3. I'm thinking we're going to start doing more "art" projects soon. We experimented a bit with crayons recently, and she only tried to eat them a few times, sooo that's a win, right? I think finger painting will be next, as well as molding clay.

Oh yes, and dry erase markers. This was after I told her the marker was "not food" (see #4)...

Yeah, she put it in her mouth. Like 3 times. Well, she's still alive and kickin', so it's all good.

4. I feel like the only things I say on most days are "not for baby", "not food", "no sounds with the mouth" (oh my goodness, especially at Mass). I should totally record those and just play them when I need to to save energy. It would also freak Gianna out so I would get a good laugh.



5. Y'all already know Gianna sings,but did you know she also plays the recorder? Augh, my heart can scarcely take it.

Here is the first time we heard her play it

And one of her more recent "concerts

6. Word count: mama, papa (which, truthfully, she doesn't say anymore, she just says mama regardless of who she wants), hi, bye-bye, thank you, ducky, and we're currently working on "please", "yes, mama", "no, mama"


7. The little conniving genius also found a way to hide food she doesn't feel like eating. She knows she'll get in trouble if she throws food off her highchair, so now,when I'm not looking she will deviously shove the food underneath/to the side of her seat. When I catch her, she smiles and tries to feed me the food...totally plays it cool. Tricky one.


8. Yeah, so I'm obsessed with the Dollar Tree??? The magical land of cheap, disposable fun and learning for Gianna is amazing.

9. Bought Gianna a membership to Rose Heights Community Life Center with her birthday money. They do seasonal memberships for $20, or a whole year for $80. It's a pretty sweet deal and we're going to try to go at least once a week. They have a "snack n play" area with tables and rides and play area and an outside playground. So much fun!

When I got her the membership, I let her run around outside a bit

Playhouse...this is her favorite

Flintstones!

Indoor playtubes and activity area below

Like a champ

I love it

With 2 of my friend Lisa's adorable kiddos, Elena and Roman. Elena totally took Gianna under her wing got Gianna totally interested in riding the horses. Too bad Gianna refused to hold on. Quite a delicate balancing act she performed there. 

Elena and Gianna

10. One last bit. Chris plays with Gianna in the morning before he goes to work so that I can sleep in a little bit more. Awesome, right? Well, Gianna knows I'm still in the room in bed and so now she walks up to the door and starts banging on it yelling MAMA! MAMA! MAMA!  Ahhhhhhhhhhh it's a good life!

8 Peeks into our week (#11)

1. as expected, Gianna began as a selective walker. Depending on her company, she would either be too busy playing to walk or want to show off.

 

Grossman clan was with us over New Years. See? Too much fun to walk.

But then over Jan 4/5th weekend, Gianna took off again! I kept trying to get pictures of her, but they're all blurry action shots. But maybe we just need a better camera. And maybe the super blurry action shotpicture stage came early?

Whomp whomp. Blurry cuteness.

It could just be that we'll have to stick to videos and I'm fine with that:

On Monday, she started to push herself up without any help.

So in conclusion, we have a walker. Nay, a toddler/runner. It's pretty fantastic to have Gianna walking after me wherever I go and see her smiling and waving her arms all over the place as she goes. And hey, now our trips to the mailbox each afternoon take 20 times as long...so...win-win, right? ;-)

2. Gianna can get herself in the bathtub. By flipping over it and bumping her head, of course.

3. Chris made bunk beds! Our friends were giving away their bunk bed set, but it was hung partially in the wall and we wanted them set up differently and to be a bit lighter (they were so heavy it took 3 men to get them down!), so Chris modified the existing framework. I love them!

 Original

 Now!

4. We. Have. A. Ponytail! It's small. You can barely see it because of blurriness (reference #1, above). But it's sooooooo cute! We have a little mullet going and I adore how it's changing the way Gianna looks (older and more like me!)

5. Gianna loves to feed us. It is precious and nasty, all at the same time.

6. I helped lead a Communities of Prayer retreat this weekend and here are a few instances of cuteness that resulted:

Gianna apparently loves peekaboo and initiates games herself now. All. The. Time. (since this weekend) This makes my heart crumble. And I also used to think peekaboo was super lame, so we didn't play very much. Now it is the best game ever.

• In this video, Gianna shows off her percussion skillzzz 
 

 

And lastly, Gianna and Blaise hanging out at the Grossman's. MMMMMmmmmmmmmm babies. I want to soak up all the cuteness.

7. Random throwback to 3rd Sunday of Advent in December:

Music time. I love it when Gianna sings along!

8.  And a few other pictures to catch y'all up. Ones that are mostly focused. Woohoo!

 Gianna ran a fever on Christmas Day and that made for lots of nursing and snuggles. Best. Thing. Ever.

 We love us some leaves. And since Papa doesn't rake them...we have plenty :-)

 

Playing with her new awesome kitchen

She found it! The missing secret ingredient! I'm trying to groom her to cook early so she can takeover kitchen duties :-)

How we do/did/want to do Advent and Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! Yes, it's still Christmas! That 12 Days of Christmas song is legit...


Anyhow, traditionally Christians celebrated Christmas all the days from December 25th through the Epiphany (12 days later), so that's how we're going to do it. Most of our plans for the season from Advent (December 1-ish) through the Epiphany (January 6th) are counter-American-culture. But that's okay, and even good, if it helps us to celebrate Christ's birth more fully. It's okay if you think we are weird. We totally are. 

FYI: This list is mostly for posterity's sake so that I have a reference for next year. But the point of the blog is to share our lives with friends and family, (and apparently people read it??? because we have over 8000 page views????) so I'm putting it out for all to see.

ADVENT: 
The Church, in her wisdom, knows all about celebrating at the proper time and place. Advent is a time of reflection, quite, and simplicity in which we "prepare the way of the Lord". The best way to prepare is in our hearts and souls by spending extra time in prayer and quiet reflection. In addition though, there are outwards signs or actions that can help us inwardly prepare. The outward signs reflect the reality within--that we are preparing for Christ.

• This year (and in future years), I'm going to do my Christmas shopping before Advent begins. I did pretty good this year, aside from some DIY-ing that was done in Advent.
  
• During Advent, the music in Mass reflects the waiting, longing, and hopeful expectancy of the Messiah's birth. Therefore, we too will/did listen to Advent music and abstained from Christmas songs. We have a lot of great hymns in church like "O Come, O Come Emmanuel"; "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus", etc that I love. I also found 4 resources with some more examples of music/CDs (here, here, here, and here!) to start building our Advent music collection, and I'm so excited that we'll be prepared for next Advent!
  
• Decorate, but only for Advent. We put up our nativity sets, set up angels, and put out the tree. The nativity sets don't include Jesus though, because he hasn't been born until December 25th!
  
• What goes on the tree, you say? Jesse tree ornaments! The CMOMs group did a Jesse tree ornament swap this year, so many of us have sets of our own to do with our families. Basically, each ornament represents a piece of salvation history from Genesis through Christ's birth. Each day, there is an ornament to hang on the tree and related scriptures. (here is more information)

 Jesse Tree Ornaments

• Advent Wreath and Calendar. We didn't do a wreath this this year, but I will next year. Like ones you might see in Church, it's a green wreath with 3 purple candles (symbol of penitence and also royalty), 1 pink candle (for Gaudete/Rejoice Sunday...we're halfway there!), and 1 white candle in the middle (representing Jesus). I had an Advent calendar that I made of purple/pink/white felt loops for G to tear off each day. Too bad she wasn't into it. Whomp whomp.

• St. Nicholas Day, December 6th. This year we did (and will continue to do) St. Nicholas stockings. I hope to make this day a pretty big deal, since St. Nick is the real "Santa Claus" (Saint Nicholas is Santa Niklaas or Santa Klaas, depending on translation/language). St. Nicholas was a totally badass Bishop who punched a heretic, was imprisoned for his faith,and was very generous to children and the poor. So, obviously, he's a cool dude to celebrate.
  
• We hope in the future to do simple celebrations of other Advent feast days, like the Immaculate Conception (maybe dress in "Mary blue" all day), Our Lady of Guadalupe (each Mexican food), and St. Lucia (patron saint of light....hang up Christmas lights on this day or go see a Christmas lights show).
  
• Last and obviously not least, pray more. This year, Chris and I purposely used Advent to start meeting with a small group at our Church called Encounter, which is part of a greater network of groups within the apostolate Communities of Prayer that we're a part of. It was really great to have extra time carved out to "be still" to prepare my heart for the coming Messiah.
  
• Read Advent, saint, or Bible stories exclusively. We're working on a collection (and will add one each year, I hope), and thanks to Tom and Renee, we've got one on St. Lucia, St. Nicholas, and our Lady of Guadalupe already!

CHRISTMAS:
Again, the Church knows whats up. We celebrate and celebrate big. Christmas music at every Sunday Mass until the Epiphany, the entire Church decorated with a zillion poinsettias, and even the prayers at Mass reflect the celebration and thanksgiving. Therefore, we shall do the same :-)

• CHRISTMAS MUSIC!!!! But not the crappy/weird songs like "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (Can you say "creepiest date rape-ish song EVER"? If you don't know what I mean...check out the lyrics). I have like 3 Pandora Christmas stations. Still not sick of them (that's the beauty of waiting!)
  
• Swap out/add Christmas decorations and bust out baby Jesus for all nativities.
  
• Watch Christmas movies! All of them. Except that weird clay-mation Rudolf one I can't stand...Also, any Nativity movie. We LOVE White Christmas with Bing Crosby and the Nativity Story. Any suggestions? Send them my way!
  
• Outside of Christmas Day with my family, we did all of our gift exchanging before/after December 25th. I think from now on though, we're going give each other 3 gifts (one to represent each wiseman) on the Epiphany (January 6), in which we celebrate the 3 wisemen bringing gifts to Baby Jesus. There's probably no better way for me to prolong the real Christmas season than waiting until the verrrrry last day to do the exciting part! Plus, maybe I will be able to shop "after-Christmas" sales for good deals hehe.
  
• Starting Christmas Day, do a wisemen version of "elf of the shelf". On Christmas, remove the wisemen from the nativity (they weren't there the day Jesus was born, ahem) and each day  move them from room to room for kids to find and make their way back to the manger for the Epiphany! I am super pumped about doing this next year with Gianna.
  
• Epiphany House Blessing: dedicate our house and family to God each year on January 6th. It involves chalk. Sure to be a win with kids, right?

All in all, I have to remember one thing. All of these outward signs are supposed to inwardly draw our hearts closer to Jesus during this season and to draw our focus towards Christ (instead of the great American dollar). If at anytime I find myself stressed out, or if our family isn't growing closer to eachother or God by these activities...then I reserve the right to add/subtract/edit! :-)

Some random thoughts about our Advent and Christmas:

• Honest moment: Jesse tree is lame when your child is 10 months old. Next year, Gianna can hang the ornaments each day and it will be a fun thing to do during the day to talk about each one. Same with the Advent wreath...I'd like to sing the same hymn each night when we light the candle and maybe she'll know it by Christmas!
  
• Gianna's favorite present was my "Who Loves Baby" Christmas Album. I used a free photo app to add text and combine pictures, so the album has pictures of me and Chris, all of Giannas aunts, uncle, grandparents, and godparents, as well as Mary and Baby Jesus.
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   This was a DIY gift I was particularly proud of. Cardboard+felt+glue/thread+pictures+lids of wipe containers. Blam!
  
  
• Christmas becomes more real when you have a baby. Thinking about Mary holding Jesus in her arms...King of the universe, Savior to all....God the son entering this world so small, vulnerable, and needy. It's mind-blowingly amazing. 
  
• Gianna is not the best present unwrapper, even with practice. She still loved all of her presents though :-)