Bananas

We like the real fruit a lot better than the baby food. She loves eating bananas, but isn't too hot on the Gerber bananas. This feeder is really cool, thanks Lori!

Out for a walk

It has been pretty chilly and drizzly here lately, imagine that...

We take every chance we get to take a walk outside, even if it means getting seriously bundled up.

Morning Person

I was thinking lately that I haven't gotten many pictures of Abigail while she is sleeping. The most recent one is pretty funny, this was a night that she was just exhausted and fell asleep on the couch. It was while Charles was out of town, and she was having a hard time missing him.


Well, this morning, she was sleeping in a little bit, so I thought I would sneak in and snap a shot or two of her before she woke up. I love getting Abigail up from her naps or when she wakes up in the morning because she is so cute and happy. So this morning, as I ever so quietly opened her door, she immediately perked up. I didn't get a shot of her sound asleep, but I got something better. Personality.


This is what I get to spend every day with. I just can't get enough.

I happened to have a picture of myself as I was waking up too. This is me when someone came in to wake me up on a morning I was trying to sleep in.
There are several people who know, I am not really kidding too much. I don't know where she gets it, but I sure love her happy demeanor, even first thing in the morning.

Intruder

This is from a while ago but Charles reminded me that I never blogged about it, and I think it is blog worthy, FOR SURE. Here is another reason why being married to Charles Himmer is full of excitement and surprises.

When we got home from our Christmas trip to Texas, we discovered that we'd had an intruder in our house while we were gone. This pest had gotten into our newly opened 20 lb bag of rice. He had left little pellets all around our house, including Abigail's crib. We were at least happy at the size of the pellets. We could tell, it couldn't be bigger than a mouse.

First of all, what the CRAP was that mouse doing in Abigail's crib? And second... was it really necessary to leave droppings there? That just ticked me off.... And made me nervous to let Abigail ever sleep in her crib again. But we have gotten over that now.

Anyway, we heard the little creature up in our attic every night as we were putting Abigail down for the night. We heard him scratching around above our heads while we tried to go to sleep. Charles informed me that there was "No way" he was sticking his head up there to get him.

One night, we were up a little later than normal, and had left a cookie sheet out on the counter (no cookies on it, we never leave cookies on a cookie sheet, just for pest control reasons of course). I heard a sudden clanking in the kitchen and alerted Charles. He s l o w l y walked down the long hallway to the kitchen, with MY shoe in his hand. What he was planning on doing with that, I'm not totally sure. When he peeked his head around the corner of the kitchen, the mouse shuffled again, and sent Charles running back down the hall, with a, "Holy Crap!"

Me: "What? Did he come after you or something?"-- This was my logical deduction from his reaction. It must be a rabid mouse.

Charles: "No, it just made a sound."

haha... The next day Charles created this contraption.




That's right. Your standard- toilet paper tube, with peanut butter and cheese in it. As the mouse goes after the cheese, it is sure to tip the tube, and thanks to our friend, gravity, the mouse will be trapped in the trash can, atop a chair.

Charles actually unrolled the toilet paper from that roll so that he could do this.

He brought me in to show me and declared with confidence, "I bet we'll have us a mouse within a couple of hours."

Two nights later, for our date night we went and bought rat poison.

And that was the end of that.

Daddy's Girl

If you only know a few things about Charles- here is one that is essential to understanding him.

He loves cereal.
More than most things. In fact... we have a whole cabinet stocked full of probably at least 25 boxes of cereal. That is our idea of food storage.

Anyway, about a month ago, we introduced Cheerios to Abigail. She was a bit apprehensive at first, but just like her dad, she has learned to quite like them.

The only problem now is, every time Abigail starts chomping on some, Charles has to have some too.

Thank you Francis

Two Saturdays ago, we got a package intended for someone else. Charles tracked down the address and delivered it to a widow that lives around the corner from us. He stayed and chatted for a while and then came home telling me I should go visit her sometime. Last Saturday, she called Charles and invited us over, so we spent a lot of the afternoon over at her house. She showered us with homemade blueberry pie, homemade bread, and some good conversation. She filled us in on one thing that I am REALLY happy about. The water we have over here is REALLY, REALLY hard. It is nearly impossible to keep bathroom fixtures clean because they get this gross brown stain on them from the water. I had pretty much decided that I was fighting a losing battle... until Francis gave us the secret.
She sent us home with a thing of this Bar Keeper's Friend, with a promise, that with a little elbow grease, it would do the trick. I was a little skeptical (we have tried EVERYTHING), but optimistic and willing to try it. By golly, IT WORKED! I have used the whole bottle this morning scrubbing away. I need to get some more to tackle my two biggest challenges, but I am certain I can make that porcelain shine with my new pal. You know it made an impression if I am blogging about it...

Birthday Girl

That's right folks, she's one year older. The big 2-0. I can't believe that my little sister is so old now. Shes' getting married this year- how is that even possible. Courtney and I have had a bit of a fiery relationship growing up... to say the least. I think when we were kids we were either getting in trouble because we were fighting, or because we were just having too much fun and being rowdy. Courtney has grown up a lot in the past couple of years and is quite the mature little 20 year old. I have come to really love the little bit of time I get to spend with her since I have left home. She is a riot. She has been known to get a little crazay too, and that is what we love about her. I am so glad that she made it up for Abigail's birth... although, she only caught it by about 12 hours, since our little Abi was on her own schedule. Courtney's flight left the morning after she was born. It was a lot of fun to get to hang out with her and mom for the week before. She is creative, caring, SO good with kids, and watch out folks... she can outcraft your grandma.

Love you Qbert. Wish we could be there to celebrate with you!

Rubber Ducky

Quite possibly one of my favorite pictures of Abigail

Lots of Pictures... Valentines Day

Our friends Adam and Tessa came out for a quick visit this weekend while they were checking out a film school Adam is looking into. We spent Valentine's Day with them up in Seattle. We basically spent the whole time at Pike Place Market... one of my favorite things about Seattle :) I took a ton of pictures... but here are some of them mostly of things in the market. They have all kinds of fruit stands, flowers, fish, and other random and delicious things. We finished the night off with dinner at Dukes on the water in Tacoma. It was a great weekend of fun with Adam and Tessa. We miss them!

Extra, Extra... Read all about it

Abigail recently took a liking to the newspaper. It is one of her new favorite toys. She reads up on the latest Wall Street news and keeps us up to date on how things are going here. It's great. I just love this girl.

Mirror, Mirror

Abigail is so into herself right now :) She loves playing with her reflection, as you can see.

Invisible

I just read this one of my friends digital scrapbooking website. Once a week they do an "un-digi" blog that isn't related to scrapbooking, and this one really hit me. All you moms and mom's to be should read it! It made me tear up... which you all know is SOO hard to do ;)

I’M INVISIBLE

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I’m on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I’m thinking, ‘Can’t you see I’m on the phone?’ Obviously not; no one can see if I’m on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I’m invisible. The invisible Mom.

Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this?

Some days I’m not a pair of hands; I’m not even a human being. I’m a clock to ask, ‘What time is it?’ I’m a satellite guide to answer, ‘What number is the Disney Channel?’ I’m a car to order, ‘Right around 5:30, please.’

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She’s going, she’s going, she’s gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a hair clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, ‘I brought you this.’ It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn’t exactly sure why she’d given it to me until I read her inscription:

‘To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.’

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, ‘Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.’ And the workman replied, ‘Because God sees.’

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, ‘I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you’ve done, no sequin you’ve sewn on, no cupcake you’ve baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can’t see right now what it will become.’

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don’t want my son to tell the friend he’s bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, ‘My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.’ That would mean I’d built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, ‘You’re gonna love it there.’

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we’re doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

My Cathedral

Quotable Charles

"You can't get anywhere in life without a google spreadsheet! Well, I guess you can, but you can get there a lot faster with one."

and a picture for good measure...

Put a sock in it!

Abigail doesn't take a pacifier. She hasn't since the day she was born- no big deal. I figure it is pretty nice, because then we will never have the problem of forgetting it, or the inevitable wean. The problem? There are things that she does enjoy sucking on. Here we have a prime example. She just layed on the ground, happy as a clam, sucking/chewing on her sock. What can I say- the girl loves her pearls.

Now I have to make fun of myself. After getting down on the ground to snap a few pictures of Abigail with her 'pacifier' and getting a few laughs in about it, I asked Charles: "Ok, how well do you know your wife?? What is the blog title for these pictures...."

Charles: "Put a sock in it. (pause) Did you really think I wouldn't know that?"

I guess I am a little too predictable. And a little pathetic... do I really think of life in blog posts? Yes, sometimes I do :)