Hannah has been talking in sentences since around October, and lately we’ve been getting more like paragraphs. Recently we saw a bike parked outside HEB. She said, “I see a bicycle. It looks dirty. Somebody needs to clean it.”

Some sentences stretch up to seven words. And they just keep coming. This girl talks a lot. We were at the pediatrician’s office (double ear infections, woohoo) and both the nurse and doctor commented at her clear speech and sheer quantity of dialogue. They also commented on how observant she is – which leads to a lot of her constant narration. I’m used to it, so it’s interesting to hear remarks from outside sources.

One of the most common phrases we hear is, “I do it my by-self!” She will also respond to herself with the common answers we give. For example, she’ll say, “I want a baby sister … Maybe, we’ll see.” Some of the memorized sayings get filed somewhere and pop back up at weird times. We were just randomly sitting on the couch when she announced, “Sushi is a special treat.” Yes, yes, it is.

Pretty much the only time Hannah is not talking is when she’s eating.

It’s already “Facebook official,” so I’m just catching up on the blog. Here’s the first picture of the littlest Wiard.

We are 10 weeks along and due on October 1st. Hannah is very excited about a baby coming. She is very nurturing toward younger kids and babies, so we are excited to see how she embraces her new role.

Our first appointment was on Monday, and we feel good about the ob/gyn group we have chosen. The staff is half doctors and half midwives, and we think this will be a good fit for the type of delivery that we are hoping for.

We are so thankful for God continuing to bring gifts to our family. Please pray that this pregnancy continues to go well, and we look forward to meeting this little person in the fall!

Sometimes when Brett has a business trip coming up, I give my sister, Kristen, a call and beg her to come and have some girl time. She has been blessed with jobs with a crazy amount of vacation days, so she is usually willing and able to come soak up some Texas sunshine.

I love the company, and she loves the warmer weather (and hanging out with the pigtailed one), but we have mutually beneficial ulterior motives. I usually have a major project I need help with, and she has this strange desire to rescue me from my life of chaos, clutter and disorganization. She knows I have good intentions but lack motivation to follow through. Kristen = motivation.

We tackled several projects in our most recent weekend together, most involving the kitchen. We pulled several items to donate and rearranged some cabinets to better use the extra space. The cabinets with my plastic storage and baking dishes were probably the worst.

before

after

That felt good. Clutter makes me panicky.

There was also pantry clean-out, recipe organization and matching things with lids (or not). For all our hard work, we rewarded ourselves with good food. Check out this Superfood Bowl we made.

Seriously good – amazing textures and pops of flavor. And if you’ve never had quinoa – try it! It’s just as easy as making rice and is crazy good for you.

So Brett came back from his trip to a cleaner kitchen and a happier wife. And Kristen went back home to start her awesome new job. So I call this a WIN, except for Kristen teaching Hannah lines from “Mitt Romney – Bad Lip Reading.” Cleaning, jalapeño margaritas, good sister talks and one exciting Target trip – good times.

The church where Hannah goes to preschool was hosting a Daddy-Daughter dance, so Brett and Hannah put on their fancy clothes and headed out on a date.

They were only there for 45 minutes, but with a toddler attention span, a lot gets squeezed in a short amount of time – pictures taken, cookies eaten, pink punch, and of course dancing.

Hannah was thrilled with the whole experience. I think we’re going to make this an annual event.

“Don’t bother me until I’ve had my morning milk.”

Seasons in Austin are different. Summer is long and hot. Fall lasts a couple weeks, but the trees either stay green or just go to brown. Winter could be anything. Usually, it’s mild and pleasant. Every couple of years, there’s some random snow or ice. This year, it seems like spring has already hit. Yesterday, it was almost 80. Here’s what it was like a year ago:

That was the most snow we’ve seen in our seven winters here. This year, we’ve been playing outside almost every day, usually without a jacket. Great for working off toddler energy. I wouldn’t mind a hard freeze to kill off some bugs, but, for the most part, this works for me!

My oven glass has been bugging me for a while. Especially since Hannah loves to turn the light on and check out what I’m baking. We could barely even see what was in there!

I tried every cleaning product I own – I even used Bon Ami. This resulted in a minuscule amount of improvement. Then I found a blog post on this specific topic – Cleaning Oven Glass. I decided it was worth a shot.

Before

With the baking soda paste on

After 15 minutes, it looked pretty much just like before; I forgot to take a picture. Barely noticeable difference. Fail.

Then Brett took pity on me and wanted to show off his manly scrubbing skills, so he volunteered to give it some more elbow grease. The baking soda paste may have loosened up some of the grime, but I think it was the extra intense scrubbing that made real headway.

Much better! Unfortunately, there’s still a lot of baked-on brown-ness. Any tips on getting this truly clean?

It seems like we have a black hole in our house. Several categories in particular have a high rate of disappearance.

Hannah’s socks – I’m constantly buying more because I can never find any. I can ransack the house and find ONE of each pair but rarely a matching set. Most days, Hannah is not wearing matching socks. Then eventually they’re gone altogether. They’re not disappearing in the wash because I have a washable zipper bag that I put them in. Where are they going?

Cat toys – Of course she bats them around the house and they slide under furniture and in weird places. But, in our old apartment, we noticed two particular hedgehog toys missing, and we always said, “We’ll find them when we move.” Then we moved, and we never found them.

Plastic-ware lids – It’s just the lids disappearing, not the containers. Somehow I ended up with six of a particular size and only two lids that fit. This doesn’t work well for me.

My sister is coming soon to help me organize and de-clutter. Maybe some of the renegade items will turn up as we go through stuff. I want to track them down, because semi-useful things make me feel wasteful. Despite my best search efforts, I keep buying more socks even though there must be perfectly wearable socks somewhere in my house. And I don’t want to buy new plastic-ware just because 70% of the lids have disappeared. But they lose a lot of their usefulness when there’s no lid. “Here, Brett, I packed you some spaghetti for lunch, but be sure to hold it upright and cover the top with your hand.”

Maybe I have Borrowers! But that’s a strange assortment of items for them to be taking.

I love watching the Miss America pageant. I look at the pictures ahead of time and pick who I think will win, and I have correctly named three of the last five winners. Brett won this year (oooops, I just outed him for watching with me).

I love the glamor of the evening gowns, the ridiculously high heels and the anticipation that someone will say something truly dreadful in the interview round (please click on that, please please please). Anyway, it’s decent Saturday night entertainment.

But the messages I noticed this year were not so entertaining. In a pre-taped interview, Miss California said, “The job of Miss America is to be sexy and inspire young girls.” Seriously? Please keep Miss California away from my kid.

Then one of the co-hosts said on stage, “These women will go on to become successful in the most important careers – lawyers, doctors, maybe president! They will really make a difference in our future.” That’s nice, but guess what, there isn’t going to be much of a future unless some of these ladies become mothers.

Oh wait, that’s not cool. That’s not glamorous.

I know the Miss America pageant has been criticized in the past for supposedly sending the message to girls that beauty is all that matters. I’d like to complain that the current message seems to be that career success (preferably in a high-profile job with a big paycheck) is all that matters.

This isn’t a new message, and maybe it doesn’t matter because I forecast that more of those women on stage will become mothers than doctors, but it would just be nice to hear someone say on TV, “These women will really make a difference in the world – they’ll become doctors, teachers and moms!”

Photo credit

I’m not sure when it started, but this is the song for my parents on their anniversary. Happy #32, Mom and Dad!

Today I am privileged to be a guest blogger on our church’s MOPS blog (Moms-of-Pre-Schoolers). They asked me to share our adoption story, so click over and check it out. :)