Let's see. Maddy sat up by herself without support yesterday. Sat for a good while, too. I took several pics. I guess I feel a little guilty for not getting more pics of Madelaine up. We took tons of McKenna. First baby and all. I guess it's that I've got the pictures but don't have as much time with two kiddos.

Let's see. Other things of interest. She chomping on her soft toys a lot lately. Another couple of months should see some teeth coming in. She's eating baby food and likes to stick her thumb in her mouth between bites. It gets rather messy, lol. Noel and I share the baby-feeding chore now that he actually can participate. She's blowing lots of raspberries right now. Just loves it. Lots of drool, yum! Likes to grab for my book when I'm reading. Is VERY distracted when nursing if she's not really hungry. Likes to latch on, then pull away to look at me and smile. Sometimes I have to ignore her in order for her to even eat! But she's getting fed at any rate. Putting on the pounds. I think I mentioned that she's rolling from her front to her back now.

McKenna is still a good little helper. Winter is NOT our time of year. I feel like we watch too much TV. We don't go out for our long walks because it's too cold and too much work with an infant. We are doing some speech therapy classes at Parkview even though she wasn't eligible for the main program. Which is a good thing, I guess. I know she's really too young to worry about it yet, but I wish she was interested in reading more. I know worlds will open up for her when she learns how and she won't be moping around the house so much. I've been doing some schoolish things with her to keep us occupied. We play matching games with shapes and also with Capital and lower case letters. She knows all of her letter sounds and we got her the "Talking Word Factory" by leap frog which starts to put letters together to form short 3-letter words. I think I just need to sit down with her more often and read during the day. Often the only reading we do is just before bed.

Other things going on - I'm making blueberry soda from scratch. I've got the soda culture bubbling away (made of ginger, sugar and filtered water) and it had to sit and be 'fed' for another 3 or 4 days and then it will be ready to use. When I stir it I can hear it fizzing and it has a pleasant ginger ale kind of smell to it. I'm pretty excited to see how it turns out. I remember my mom making some root beer with us soon after we moved to AZ. I remember it turning out okay. Noel's interested in root beer so I may have to try that, as well.

I'm ready to start ordering seeds for my garden this year. I've plotted out where I'm going to plant everything and nothing is going to be planted where it was last year. Rotation, and all that jazz. I've been very interested in Herbalism of late and will try making some salves and teas and tinctures to try. I like the idea of knowing what plants can help which ailments in case I ever need that knowledge. For instance, I read that sodas used to be used medicinally? It was just another way to take a medicine. I also read that the little bacteria used to produce the carbonation are technically 'dead' in the sodas we drink since otherwise they would be exploding on store shelves if they weren't bought and used right away. Directions for my blueberry soda caution the user to not forget about the sodas in the fridge because even though the fermentation process slows, it does not stop. Anyway, can't wait to try it out.

I'm also planning to make dandelion wine this year. We don't spray our backyard with pesticides and we have a nice batch of clover and dandelions so instead of cursing them this year I'm going to try using them to my advantage! I'll let you know how THAT experiment turns out. It would be a year before I could drink it, anyway. They call it 'slow food' for a reason, I guess!

More later!

So there's a wild and crazy LAN party at my house right now. It started at 10am and as of 9:14pm is still going strong. Noel told me people might be here until 2am, which is better than 6am I guess. I just put McKenna and Madelaine down and we'll see how they sleep. I spent the whole day today at Patty's, who was kind enough to let me crash at her place so I wouldn't have to live upstairs in my own house. The kids had a fantastic time. They got along really well except for a couple of times and the claws (on my daughter) never came out. I think she's starting to grasp the concept of sharing and asking permission before playing with other kids toys. She's also speaking more clearly and I think that helps a lot.

Our house was pretty clean before the party-goers started coming over and Noel was mostly to thank for that. The place was decent with only some vacuuming and mopping to do, which I figured would be better doing AFTER the party. Otherwise, he cleaned out the bathrooms and picked up clutter and got the cats settled upstairs with food water and litter. I was thinking to myself at one point, 'maybe we should have a LAN more often if he's going to clean like this' but that remains to be seen. Now that the twins don't have their house to host the parties in, the guys will be rotating parties through each others places which means we'll have parties here more often. However, depending on how this one goes, I may have to impose a time limit. Like everyone gone by 1am. And that, in my opinion is generous!

Other than that, a good day! I brought a book with me to Patty's "World Made By Hand" by James Howard Kunstler which is basically about a future world where oil has depleted and there's been a few bombings of major cities and the government is either non-exsistent or mostly defunct. Basically, people have to grow their own food and walk or ride horses everywhere. Life it much more local. A good read on what might become of us if the 'Peak Oil Theory' is proved as true someday. Also worked on a belt for McKenna. I crocheted it out of some chenille yarn and now just need to attach it to a D-ring which I thought I had some of, but guess not?

Anyhoo, time to surf the net for awhile and relax. I'm not even going to try to fall asleep before midnight. I'm not looking forward to all the tossing and turning I'm no doubt going to have to get through with all of the comotion below!