Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Accidental Bat

Inara said she was going to paint me a picture containing water, grass and a rainbow. I exclaimed that I would love such a picture and continued doing what I was doing. As I walked up the stairs, she said: "It's almost done, I'm just going to paint a rock - oops, it turned into a bat." 

Indeed it did!


It's fascinating to see Alba already painting and drawing. I don't remember Inara doing it so early, but it makes sense that Alba watches Inara while it wasn't like Inara saw us painting every day. 
Here is Alba's latest (I'm a little fussier on the motif on this one):

 



Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Walking

By the way, Alba is walking now. Only when she wants to though. Crawling is still the fastest option when it comes to keeping up with Inara, making it to the stairs before the gate is closed, or escaping out the door. 




Sunday, July 27, 2014

Saturday, July 26, 2014

Scientific observations

Greetings all. It has been a while since I've graced the blog with a post. I am so gracing it now.

Tonight Inara is spending her first night away from home without her parents. She is at grandma Anita's house. She was pretty stoked for the chance (largely because it involved popcorn and the movie Frozen). As the movie ended about thirty minutes ago I assume things have went well. That Inara was heavily sleep deprived should work in Anita's favor. Either way we turned our phones off.

Anycase here is my main point of this post. We've been observing Inara's sleeping habits and have discovered something potentially groundbreaking. I have made the below graph to show the results of my research.



As you can see from the above chart the amount of energy Inara derives from a mere 15 seconds of sleep is equal to the energy needed to remain awake 2 additional hours at bedtime. This is nearly a payback of 500 times the invested (sleep) time. As the graph runs in seconds I could not adequately show what happens at the 1800 seconds mark (30 minutes). At this point the additional consciousness rises to 3 hours, but the payback is markedly decreased to a factor of 6. At the one hour mark of naptime it is speculated there will be an increase of consciousness equivalent to 5 hours. At the 2 hour mark no additional sleep is presumed to be required by the child. Ever.

As you can see the area with highest confirmed payback appears to be somewhere between 15 and 60 seconds. Additional testing is needed.

I will be publishing these findings in my paper entitled, "For the love of god, sleep" in the Journal of  Pediatrics and Parental Suffering.


Sunday, July 20, 2014

Tiny

Last week, we went to a farm where we got to rent this tiny horse and take it for a stroll while Inara was riding it. I spent most of our little walk trying to pull the horse along while it spent most of it eating grass. Inara seemed to have a good time though. 

Not pictured: Alba being terrified of bunnies. 




Friday, July 18, 2014

Muscle

Alba loves pushing Inara around in the cart. Working those leg muscles, I guess!


Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Foraging

After we discovered there are raspberries and currants growing in the forest patch behind our house, the whole family headed out to pick.





Andrew is on vacation for five weeks and we decided not to go anywhere off the island and to just plan things as they come (although Andrew would say I schedule too many things).

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Home

Better late than never - here are some pictures of the house:

Our bedroom

Hallway with the office at the end. A lot of boxes in there still so no picture.

Inara's (and soon Alba's) room

Dining Area

Living room

Kitchen

Kitchen
Backyard

Front yard

Back yard dining area
Still a lot that we want to do, but it's beginning to feel like home. Also, this is our house when it's cleanish. It doesn't look like this every day. Trust me.

Friday, July 11, 2014

Forest Friends

We went blueberry picking yesterday and found these two little friends just sitting there in the path:

Monday, July 7, 2014

Three!

Finally, a post about Inara's third birthday! All parents say it, but it really is strange how three years have went by already. I remember her birth like it was just a little while ago and now she is this little person with her own thoughts, feelings and desires. Even though we sometimes fight, I'm very glad that she is exactly who she is and that she is our daughter.

We had her birthday party the day before her actual birthday since it was a weekend. Four of her friends and their parents were invited. We set everything up outside near the playground with decorations and food and just as everybody arrived the skies opened up and we had to rush to get inside. This resulted in seven kids and ten adults squeezed into our living room. Everyone was a good sport, but as soon as it stopped raining we all headed outside. 

Inara is extremely into dinosaurs at the moment (pterodactyl is her favorite) so naturally we went for a dinosaur themed birthday. 

Preparations:

Andrew and I managed to put this cake together the night before and I think it turned out pretty well considering we have no previous cake decorating experience:


 I cut some dinosaurs out and made gift bags filled with dinosaur stickers and other dino-related stuff. We skipped the candy:


Andrew drew dinosaur tracks from the parking lot to the playground using chalk, but unfortunately they were all washed away by the rain:


I had found some dinosaur masks that we handed out to the kids as they arrived. Here Inara is trying hers out in advance:


The Party:

Opening a gift from her best preschool friend:



There was even lava inside the volcano:


Pleased by her cake:


Respecting the privacy of the other guests, I'm not going to post a lot of photos, but here is one of Inara putting her arm around Alba - such a good big sister:

  
In summary, I think the party was a success and Inara seemed really happy with everything. Next up on the blog will be her actual birthday!

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Play

Inara and Alba are playing more and more together. Inara frequently asks for her when she's sleeping and is sad when she has to wait to play with her until she wakes up (and sometimes wakes her up). Today, she demanded I leave Alba outside on the front steps with her when I went inside for a couple of minutes. They just sat there "writing letters" together.


Thursday, July 3, 2014

Funny


In the background: Inara explaining how the dinosaurs went extinct after an asteroid hit the earth.