mama

Sprout now reliably says "mama" and "dada" for David and me. It's SO. COMPLETELY. CUTE! This morning he even stretched it out to be "Mahhhm." He said it a couple of times. He also points to himself and said, "Doh."

He loves to point to things and have us tell him the names.

and then there were none

Otis, the last living of our four rat brothers, passed away this morning. This is the first time in nearly 7 years that we've had no pet rats living with us. We've had as many as seven before. We aren't planning on getting any more for a while, either. Probably not until the kids are a little older and able to do the cage cleanup on their own. (We have a HUGE cage.)

Otis had been alone since shortly after Thanksgiving, and I think it was mostly sadness and loneliness that hastened his passing, rather than illness. Poor guy just missed his brothers so much.

Rest in peace, little ratties.

temporary houseguest

We are tending this little guy until Christmas (he came on Saturday) for a family in the neighborhood. He is so sweet and cute! It will be kind of hard to say goodbye. He loves to be scritched and makes the cutest little chirps and other happy noises. I foresee a guinea pig in our future. (Not the immediate future, but someday!)

clutter

I am feeling overwhelmed by STUFF lately. Particularly kids' clothing. I don't know how to organize the outgrown stuff, what to save & what to give away/donate. Especially as they get older and the clothes show substantial wear, but still have a decent amount of wear left in them. For example, Noodle has outgrown her size 6 jeans, many of which we acquired secondhand (as handmedowns or from Savers), and they have knee patches, but now, with the knee patches, would be great for another girl to wear. But do I hold on to them for SEVEN YEARS? That seems a little ridiculous. So then I think, I'll just save the cutest or the ones in the best condition. Then I can't decide, and figure if I'm saving any, I might as well save them all, and I'm back to where I started. For being born a good 40+ years after the Great Depression, why the heck do I have so much angst about getting rid of stuff? Sigh.... I recently threw out some dollar store tableclothes that we'd bought for our Ichthoberfest party two years ago (and used). They were nice enough to reuse, but why did I hang on to them for so long? It would have been one thing if they'd have been in some designated spot, but they were just floating around from place to place.

I'm also the queen of repurposing. I use old containers for all sorts of things. I like the canisters from things for wrapping, we use peanut butter jars when we make freezer jam, we use empty cereal boxes for all sorts of crafts, large clear plastic containers for bug houses... It's hard for me to throw out anything that I can think of a reasonable re-use for.

But I'm tired of so much stuff around me. Papers. Projects. Books. Clothes. Toys. I feel like I really need to purge a lot of things. I don't know how to begin, or how to get over my "But what if I need it?" panics. Should I start with the stuff in the shed--the clothes and packed away toys? Then stuff that we DO want to keep that is cluttering the house can be moved out to the cleaned out shed. It seems like a good place to start. Maybe first I should try and get the office under control so I'll have a home base for sorting all this stuff out.

Obviously I'm thinking out loud here. Sometimes it'd be nice just to delete a certain trait and download an upgraded version!

cute handmade gift idea....

I helped Noodle sew one for Spud this week.

The Purl Frog

I'm itching to make more, but still have dolls & clothes to finish. I think it will be on my "post Christmas" list of sewing projects, though.

oh the boogers!

Sunday we left church after Sacrament meeting because Noodle was all sniffly. Monday, Sprout started in. Spud held off until Wednesday night and I finally succumbed last night. (Not surprisingly, since Sunday, Monday & Tuesday nights I got very little sleep tending to little Sprout.) Noodle is all better today, and was pretty good yesterday, too, so I guess I have a couple more days of this. I keep having mad crazy sneezing fits, which leave me feeling rather discombobulated. Better than painful coughing spells, but nonetheless unpleasant.

I'm amazed that we've been able to get as much done this week as we have. My folks are coming into town in the next hour or so, and while I'd like the house to be cleaner, at least the room they'll be sleeping in is presentable.

This is our first cold since starting school, so I think we are doing pretty good, healthwise. No doubt we caught it from some cousins at Thanksgiving last week. Sometimes I wish it were possible (and more fun) to adopt an isolationist strategy from November until March. Dealing with illness is such a drain. (Both literally and figuratively!)

love it!