The Partnership Grows

Grandma and Grandpa Faiola have been up to visit a lot in the last month. We are so lucky that they are so charmed by their grandbabies (all of them! that includes you baby Alise and Samantha and Toby!). Here we are, exploring the docks. Jamisen was soooo curious about everything; "What's that for!?" with just about everything that we saw. 

Baby Lily is quite independent but still loves to be held. She goes back and forth between who the most favorite parent is but Grandma Faiola always has her heart. 

Mama Cheriss is amazing and is such a good Mother to baby Alise, who has no idea yet how lucky she was to be born into the Faiola clan. The rest of the family, especially her Daddy, is pretty dang fond of her too. 

The happiest, most blessed family in the world celebrates at Zuanich Park - and no, Cheriss cannot hold her own baby. If Aunty Anne-Marie is around, baby Alise has no chance of being in her parent's arms. 

Lily loves water of all types - and she's learning about gravity and how to throw (really, just a glorified dropping motion) into the water. 

But really, she is obsessed with the bath! She tries to tear her own clothes off (very ineffectively) just to get in. And if she hears the word 'bath', she runnnnnns to the bathtub to get in. 

She is the cutest, most happy little girl isn't she?

She's probably that way because she has the world's best big brother. Jamisen is growing more and more protective and patient by the day. Of course, he still has his moments - mostly around sharing - but they continue to grow closer and stronger as a big brother and  little sister team. It makes our hearts proud. 

Of course, we can't forget the other babies - Samantha and Toby - who Grandma and Grandpa Faiola still dote on, despite our other children actually speaking. It's okay baby Alise, Lily and Jamisen ... I'm sure you'll eventually do something that puts you way over the top on the admiration and attention list but for now, Sammy and Toby are still pretty darn cute. 

Can you see Jamisen in the above picture? Yeah, it's okay. We can't either. He's totally missing and definitely is not pretending to be a dog or a rainbow under the blanket. Lately, he's been licking Lily because he's so certain he's a dog. She, of course, loves it (not). 

When we got up this morning we found this. He said "I've been reading to her and teaching her to talk!" Again, there are moments of genius with this little partnership that make a Mama proud. 

Party Girls, Cooking Boys and Climbing Mommies

Little Lily is so close to talking. She babbles happily all the time and hasn't added much to her repertoire except "papa" and, she still loves to say the word 'blueberry'. We're rather impressed since it's a 3-syllable word.

She's getting on giant molar in the back (left) and has been waking up, wailing, multiple times a night. It's so sad. She is inconsolable when she's in pain and hates to have her gums rubbed. She's still just napping one nap in the afternoons now and that is working well for the entire family.

Lily is ridiculously active. She hates sitting in the stroller to be pushed around. She loves to climb and is fearless. She sees her brother going and wants to always go with him. She loves to run, run, run as fast as her little chubby legs can carry her and lately, has started throwing balls and chasing them through the house. We're thrilled; anything to help her work off her amazing energy.

This is the day that Jamisen convinced me that cupcakes were a good breakfast food. Sometimes, he is so cute and so well behaved that I just can't say 'no.'. 

Lily is a carb baby and loves to eat anything that has refined flour. If it has sugar, there are bonus points. She has five teeth now so giving her full pieces of soft food isn't as much of a "all hands on deck!" watch post situation..

Lily fell and hit her head at REI. Nanny McKenna took both kids there to take advantage of their sale and a display came between the shopping Nanny and the playing children. Lily lost that battle and has a deep gash on her forehead that we are lovingly applying balm to in the hopes that it does not scar. 

I made Jamisen and Lily egg quiches for breakfast in little muffin tins. They're delicious but man, it's such a pain in the rear to clean the pan.

Jamisen had is second dentist visit to check up on his teeth. We got what he feels is a full death sentence: flossing. His parents aren't too thrilled either. Have you ever tried to floss a fish? That's basically what it's like to floss this little boy.

My software and website development company had a major success last week. We hired a senor developer out of NYC. She does all the deep software architect'ing and is ridiculously talented. We are thrilled to have her on our team; so thrilled that I made her scale high walls to jointly celebrate. 

One of my Mastermind business groups had our all day planning and goal setting retreat last week. We came up with family goals, personal goals and business goals. I'll share the family goals as soon as Chris signs off on them. As for Chris, he's been extremely busy hiring a new CFO for his company after his stable, long-term team member left for a different opportunity. 

As always, we are extremely grateful and blessed for our healthy, happy family and challenging work opportunities. 

The Dating Lives of Toddlers

Jamisen visited Alise last week and was quite happy to hold her and be a helpful older cousin. He still doesn't understand the concept of holding her neck up but he's sure valiantly trying to show affection. 

Aunty Sharon and baby Alise bond. 

Baby Lily is growing up super fast. She can say the words "apple" "blueberry" "baby" and "fish." She signs "more" quite well and understands 100% of what is said now. 

Lily is 17 months old now and the 18 month old clothes are still too big for her. She weighs just about 22 pounds, as of this morning. Jamisen is a whopping 32 pounds. Lily out-eats him 3:1 generally. This morning, she ate 2 fried eggs, 4 mandarin oranges, a handful of wafers and a pat of butter. Jamisen ate 1 fried egg and 1 orange and proclaimed himself 'done.' This is completely normal in our household. 

Lily is getting obsessed with water. It's just what Jamisen went through at this age. Only the difference is that she's also playing the toilet, which he never did. We have to keep all the lids down or else she happily splishes and splashes in the porcelain throne. 

Jamisen loves his tutu and can be found wearing it most weekend days now. He proclaimed himself to be a "princess car driver." We are fully supportive of his creativity of thought. 

Jamisen loved using the umbrella as a parasol for his victory race car lap.

Jamisen still has a special bond with Ava. Here they are, Facetiming. He is showing her his Olympic torch craft project. Of course, when he finally got her on the phone, he completely clammed up and didn't talk to her. #Adorable. 

Work wise, it's been busy for us all. I just got back from DC (lobbying) and am thankful to be back to the family. Chris and I even managed to get in a date night (and saw the movie "Gone Girl"). It's nice that the kids are getting older so that is just barely starting to be possible - regular date nights. =)

Spoon Training, Aunties & Parks

Milestones this week for Lily include self spoon feeding. She has progressed with her spoon feeding that she can eat an entire container of yogurt by herself, with only about 25% ending up somewhere other than her belly.

Chris is less indulgent of the spoon training than I am since inevitably, it involves losing multiple outfits to the yogurt - both Lily's and whoever is in charge of cleaning her up! Another milestone is that she is dropping her morning nap and moving to only one nap per day in preparation for her to start 2-day-per-week pre-pre school. Notice the Norsk colors Chris is striking a pose with in the photo above. That ear warmer was a gift from Aunty Anne Ma who visited last week all the way from Norway,

We were so happy to have her stay at our house - and what a treat for the kids. She had so much energy to play, to read and to keep up with them. She also was extremely helpful cooking and cleaning and her sense of humor shone through in everything she did. We were lucky to have her stay with us. The fact that she came with Grandma and Grandpa Faiola was icing on the cake. 

Proving the bounty of our familial love, Aunty Sharon also visited. She was here for a book faire and conference. She cooked her "famous" kaftakari lamb balls and also played the piano. The children were rapt with attention as she played the most splendorous version of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.'

We figured out that Lily is the perfect size to fit inside a roll on, carry-on suitcase and she loves it. Chris spent an entire hour rolling her around and she did not want to be done with it. She crawled in herself many times over this last week, and we've finally hidden the suitcase to protect her from (a) freezing in that position of (b) accidentally getting stuck with no parent around to help.

With the last rays of summer eking away, we have been getting in as much park time as possible. It rained much of this week  so whenever we see the sun, it's a beeline to the park and outdoor activities. These kids have energy to spare!

This picture was taken the day Chris got back from his latest trip to Saudi. He literally drove in and I hopped into the car with Jamisen and drove out, leaving Chris at home with Lily. Jamisen's new school had a school picnic and we wanted to go to get better acquainted with other families at the school. Jamisen proudly introduced me to a little boy, stating "This is my friend!" Of course, he didn't remember his friend's name (Henry) but I was pleased he felt like he was making friends. 

This is a snapshot of all the rough draft soaps that I'm designing for my next book, Pure and Natural Soapcrafting. All of these colors are achieved with a combination of nature-identical oxides and pigments and/or herbal infusions. Additionally, they're all fragranced with essential oils and over 50% of them are Palm-Oil free, a controversial ingredient in the natural and organic communities. The book manuscript is due in 6 days so this will be a week of focus and concentration as I edit and put the finishing touches on all the chapters. 

We were lucky and got to take care of Baby Alise for a night so Uncle Erik and Aunty Cheriss could go celebrate their anniversary. What a joy to see our kids play nicely with their cousin. Jamisen is especially tender and kind. 

This photo makes me laugh so much. The kids sometimes play really well together in the tub and other times, they wish they had the tub to themselves. I think you can guess which one would prefer to be by herself in the tub. =)

This Thomas the Train Shirt is part of the most adorable 'back to school' outfit I got Jamisen. He loves Thomas the Train still but seems to be drifting from the cartoon to more realistic depictions of trains. Ah, I suppose it is all part of growing up. 

As always, we are blessed, happy and thankful for our close family and extended family all over the world. 

We Love Our Cousin

Baby Alise has us all smitten and, for good reason.

She is sleeping 4-5 hours at a stretch, gaining weight like a champ and showing amazing neck strength. She is strong and showing clear qualities of thrive and domination; basically, in short, she is obviously a Faiola.

Baby Lily weighs exactly twice what baby Alise weighs so soon, Alise will be able to handily win wrestling matches just by growing a tinch more. The kids were so happy to have both Grandmas around for loving and holding (though, Alise is a hot commodity so it took a while for her to make it to very patient Grandma Kelly).

Jamisen loves, loves, loves baby Alise. It is rather endearing how loving his since he knows she's going home and not staying at his home, fighting for precious resources,

Jamisen had a hilarious little incident the other day. He is fully potty trained (and for you competitive sisters? He had three accidents. TOTAL. For all of his potty training. And that includes nighttime). The other day, when he was standing up to go pee, he relaxed all his muscles, including his sphincter muscles. He farted (or as we say in our house, "Your dog is barking!") and out popped a little loose stool. He looked back, saw the deposit on the floor, laughed and said, "A moose came out!" (Dear Future Wife: Yes, I'm sure this will make the wedding toast. Consider yourself warned).

Alise may not quite be as enamored with Jamisen as he is with her. Thankfully, she has enough strength and heft to make her dismay clear. 

We were beyond (beyond beyond!) thrilled that Aunty Anne Ma visited from Norway! Yes, all the way from Norway to visit Alise (and perhaps the other cousins and her sister, but really, it was for this amazing addition to our growing Faiola Family). She was (is!) amazing with Jamisen and Lily. It was such a pleasure to have her visit and we can't wait to host more Norwegian cousins, aunts and uncles.

Aunty Anne Ma brought some amazing gifts for us - chocolate, socks, books (oh Karius and Bactus!)  and this amazing ear warmer for our marathon running Chris. 

Lily is contemplative about this new addition that is taking attention from her but she seems to feel that her piercing blue-grey eyes and perfect heart bow lips will win the day.

Or perhaps, the long lashes may win the day but either way, Lily's place in our hearts is firmly in place, guarded by her big brother, who continues to love her 20% of the time and rue the day she arrived 80% of the time - but this percentage improves weekly. We trust they will be best of friends by 2045.