Baby Rimes

So, when we moved in to our new abode, the first thing I thought was, “oh! those birds have got to go!” For those of you who haven’t been to my house, the kitchen is a very lovely little cottage/farmhouse/contemporary disaster of design styles. The black appliances scream “contemporary modern!!” while the blue plaid knobs are crying out, “farmhouse chic!” And of course, there’s the fact that it’s cottage sized. But the one thing that I just couldn’t stand was the birds. Someone along the line decided to use a wallpaper border around the kitchen and dining room that contained birdhouses and birds.

The birds had started talking to me, and what they said was, “please, ma’am, take us out of our misery and pull us off the wall.” So I did. Almost 6 months ago. Did I do anything else for 3 months? Nope, we just stared at the empty space where those birds used to be.

Not the best picture in the world, but you get the idea.

Then, I got motivated to take down some more wallpaper. Unfortunately, instead of wallpapering with real honest to goodness wallpaper, they (someone who owned this house before us) decided to use shelf liner OVER wallpaper. Yup. So I steamed and steamed and steamed and finally got down to the nasty wallboard that is up on the walls. Some of it was primer gray, while patches were yellow. The trim had all been painted mauve at one point in this poor house’s existance.

So, a few weeks ago, my wonderful mother-in-law said, come on, we’re finishing this thing by Thanksgiving. We cleaned all the walls and got the remaining ook off the walls. We patched and primed.

Then we painted. What used to be an old faded blue mottled wallpaper is now…

Pumpkin Toast!

In a fit of Autumn, I decided to paint my dining room the color of a squash. Albeit, a toasted squash. Now, Daddy Rimes is telling me that I cannot repaint this Christmas to a Poinsettia Red or Pine Tree green. I have assured him, this will not happen.

However, I cannot promise that come Easter I will not have visions of Pastel Pink walls.

As you may recall hearing in another post, we have a new game in the house. Daddy Rimes really likes his Wii (get your mind out of the gutter, this is a family page). Last weekend, he went out and bought a new game, this game to be exact.
It comes with a very fancy controller that looks like a guitar. And you play it, just like you would a plastic, stringless guitar too.

Daddy really likes this game. He likes it so much, he’s taught Miss R how to play.

She likes to stay up late and play in her jammies.

Even Mommy likes to play. In fact, Mommy is quite good at it considering she has no rhythm, can’t sing, and has two left feet. But apparently, having artist fingers with a lot of dexterity seems to be working.

Since Mommy is the official photographer though, there are no pictures of her playing.

But there is another cute baby shot!

She really rocks out!

I’ve never been to California and I’ve never seen a Redwood tree, but it is on my list of things to do before I get too old to really enjoy them.

I read yesterday on CNN about this wonderful new technology which may make it possible to clone Redwood trees. In the future when Miss R is all grown up and we have cut down all the trees to make parking lots, there is the hope that they will still be able to grow a new forest in Al Gore’s backyard.

One of my favorite stories is the Lorax by Dr. Suess and this story sort of reminded me of it. When I worked at the Kalamazoo Nature Center one summer, we put on a play version of the Lorax. I got to be “backstage” and work with the “Oncelers.” They were so cute with their arms all painted green.

So Halloween has come and gone. One of my most beloved holidays. What other time of year is it acceptable to wear what would normally be considered incredibly strange?

Miss R did do the costume thing at day care, however, when it came to Trick or Treating, she just wasn’t that into it. So we sat on the porch and handed out candy to all the cute costumes. She was not about to give candy to anybody scary, so Mommy took care of that.

We had quite the assortment of trick or treaters, and it was a lovely night. Daddy carved some pumpkins (they’re famous pumpkins, check out Kotaku-look for Pac-Man) that the high school kids stopped and admired.

And last but not least, here is our darling candy queen doing her best to practice for

next year

.

Baby R got to pick out her first pumpkin this weekend.

We talked about pumpkins and knew what color they were. Talked about the little gourds and how they are different colors. Then, we talked about fall and showed her some leaves. We are such teachers.

So, we got to take a field trip to a pumpkin patch. Our first choice was out because it was just too commercial and I didn’t feel like spending all that money on games, when what we really wanted were pumpkins. So we ended up going to DeVries Farms and getting some really good looking squash.

We also got to play in their spooky train yard. Miss R liked the John Deere and the ducks. When she was done ringing the bell to scare away the ghosts, she picked out the cutest little pumpkin to take home. I was really impressed. She went right to it, scooped it up, and said, “this one, Mommy.” Like it was just sitting there waiting for her to take it home. I’m so glad we didn’t go to the Humane Society instead. We would have ended up with a poodle or a tiger kitty.

We took our Halloween goodies home and set them all up on the porch until next weekend when we go to carve them out. I was hoping for something like this, but I may have to wait until Miss R is a little bigger and less spooked by all this stuff.

ok, it’s really late.  I know.  I’m sorry.  I will try and play catch up with the blog in the next few days.

First!  Let’s talk cake!

Our little munchkin has turned 2!  With much fanfare and pink cupcakes, we had a little party that included a lot of play-doh, kitchen and accessories, and a green big wheel.

And now that she’s 2, she is officially “terrible.”  Ok, not really, she just won’t stop talking!  It’s constant!  And she likes to call everyone big, or little.  “Little Mommy, need applejuice!”  “Big Daddy come back.”  And so on.  It was seriously cute at first, but now, I’d really like to be just Mommy again.  Oh well.  I should remember these moments because one day soon I will just be that lady that lives at home and makes dinner.  Love the little people.

mommy likes socks.

Baby R likes to play with mommy’s socks.

Baby R actually let mommy knit up these socks for Gramma.

And it only took 6 months!

They knit up wonderfully (even though the one on the right is a wee bit smaller than the one on the left.  shhhh, don’t tell) and I had such a good time that I went and signed up for Sockapalooza 4.  YIKES!

Bunny and Baby have made friends again (I totally forgot to get pictures, but I will next time, I promise!). They hopped around the yard with Baby R screaming “B-B-B-Munny!” and trying to catch her itty bitty bunny tail. The poor thing (bunny, not baby) was caught twice. But with one swift flick of her little bunny nose, Baby R was off and running in the other direction. Those little bunny teeth are somewhat of a problem and scare her easily, even though Fritz doesn’t really bite. But it’s a good defense mechanism, and one that I’m not ready to stop yet in order to let Fritz keep her sanity.

And before you all go “Awww how cute!” on me, I should probably remind those of you who haven’t met Snickelfritz (that’s the bunny) that she’s really more of a house cat sized bunny. In fact, she’s bigger than my last house cat. She’s a very significant, baby proof 10+ pounds of fat gray bunny.

Now you all really do want pictures. Ok, this weekend I will have pictures of the bunny with a baby for reference to her size (the bunny’s not the baby’s).

what did we have for breakfast?

“TOAS!!!!”

If you’ve never heard Heywood Banks, you should probably take a second to enjoy the wonderment that is the toast song. That’s what we sing every morning, or at least hum quietly, as Baby Rimes licks the butter off her toast. She LOVES toast.

The Rimes family took advantage of the glorious weekend weather to do some gardening. Even Baby Rimes helped. Mommy showed her what to pull up and off she went. Tearing out everything that had a green leaf on it (so much for those day lilies). Plus we pulled out even MORE ivy from around the house. Baby Rimes is a little bummed about that, because she likes to tromp through the piles of ivy leaves and jump off the raised bed where the ivy has taken over. Her play area is slowly dwindling.

Baby Rimes also helped Mommy and Daddy with the big garden. Our neighbors have given us the go ahead to use a little of their space for a veggie garden. It’s the only 5 feet of space that gets sun besides the back porch. So, we’ll be planting a little fruit and veggie garden and teaching Little One how to pick tomatoes - I’m sure she’ll be an expert in no time. So far, the peppers I planted indoors have come up and are surviving. The tomatoes and chives didn’t really make it, nor did the rosemary. But the Marjoram might just make a comeback. Then I get to start the cucumbers and watermelon this month!

In other news, Mommy has signed on to Sockapalooza 4

Now, if I can just get that first pair of socks done…