The Talens' Tales

Okay. These pictures are at a really weird angle, but they are so cute, I just had to share them. And since I know there are a few accountants who read this (namely my mom), I know they can use a little smile on this last day of the first month of tax season. So, here is Joash at 14 weeks, laughing and smiling. I hope this brought a little smile to your day.

Joash has yet to go into the barn. But he seems very excited about it. When ever I talk to him about the farm, he smiles quite a bit. And as you can see from this picture, he enjoys reading Farm Show with Dad already. I think in a few years, Dad is going to have a good little helper. On another note, we are now getting the winter storm that hit the Northeast States yesterday. So, it is a good day to stay home.

As you know, Joash come from two rather musical parents. And we are perhaps seeing a love of music developing on our son. I sing with Joash a few time each day. I sing children's Sunday School songs like "Jesus Loves Me," "Praise Him! Praise Him! All You Little Children," and "This Little Light of Mine." If there are any actions to the song, I try to move his arms and hands to mimic the actions. And it never fails that his smiles and coos just start rolling out. This happens too at bed time when Wilbert sings the Dutch bedtime prayer song to Joash. He always starts to coo and smile then. It is funny because we talk to him all the time and read books and play with him in lots of different ways. But, if you want to bank on getting some coos and smiles, you have to sing. So perhaps a love of music starts young.

Joash is 3 months old today. I did a little in home photo shoot with him and here are some of the best pictures and a few facts about what Joash is like at 3 months. Joash is discovering his hands. The hardest part of the photo shoot was that his hands were flying around all of the time or they were in his mouth. He often takes a prayerful pose with hands folded and then proceeds to eat both hands at once. Thoughtful Joash. He is a very content baby. He is getting better and better at tummy time and he is able to hold his head up, while lying on his stomach for a little while. A little smile while he shows off his hands. He is now starting to hit at the things on his gym with an open hand, rather than his fist. "I am growing, little bit by little bit."

Since Joash does sleep well at night, we are able to have a few in home date nights every now and then. These usually involve homemade pizza and a movie. This past weekend we watched Julie and Julia (it was my turn to pick out the movie), but we both really like it. It is based on two true stories, that of Julia Child and Julie Powell, a woman who cooked through Julia Child's cookbook in a year and blogged about it. The two stories were meshed together well through the common theme of food. The story was both serious and funny. The acting was excellent and the food looked awesome. We found it interesting to learn a bit more about Julia Child's life. She is such and iconic figure, but we knew very little of her personal life. Through the film you learn about her fantastic marriage, how she longed to have children, how she learned to cook and all of the work that went into the cookbook. And it is this story that helped Julie Powell find herself as she was feeling a bit lost as s...

I am really enjoying being a stay a home mom. But I know some people wonder what I do all day. So, I thought I would give you a little glimpse of what occupies my day. 1) Feeding, Playing, and Caring for Joash. This obviously takes up the most time and it is the reason I am home. Joash still is not a long napper, but he is usually quite pleasant while he is awake and has enough changes in his activity. Thankfully he plays well independently and can be entertained for a long time with his gym and swing. Since he usually naps in 1/2 hour chunks, I need to have some freedom to do some things while he is awake. 2) Laundry and Housework. Since we are using cloth diapers, I have at least one load of laundry every other day. And since I don't really like cleaning the house, but I also don't like a dirty house, I have to clean sometimes too. I have currently broken my house up into five pieces (Dusting up stairs, dusting down stairs, etc.) and I make myself do one section a day, so tha...

I like to be on top of things. So, I decided not to wait to long to work on Joash's US paperwork. Since I am a US citizen, Joash can be a US citizen as well, which will be really advantageous for his future. So, in December I figured out what I needed to do. I sent away to Halifax for the paperwork I would need. I received this paperwork last week and worked hard on in. Once I had everything, I needed to make an appointment with the US Consulate in Halifax. Well, today I called to make my appointment. I had to leave a message and they called back. I was impressed that they actually called me back the same day. But soon my hopes were dashed. It seems that between the time they sent me the forms I needed and today, the State Department decided to update all of its forms for this process. So, the Consulate is not taking any appointments until the forms are updated. Grr! So they took my information down and will send me the forms I need once they are updated. So, I am a bit frustrated ...

It is hard to believe that Joash is twelve weeks already. He is sitting on my lap sleeping right now after talking to his aunt in Michigan. I am really enjoying him now since he is becoming more and more responsive. He smiles and coos a lot right now. If you blow on his face, he smiles and laughs a little, which is fun. He now falls asleep pretty well any time he should be sleeping. Nap times are still pretty short, but I am just going with it and hoping that as he gets older, his naps will get longer. So life on the island is good. We are truly blessed!

I knew that parenting would be hard. But I thought the hard parts would be getting up at all hours of the night, discipline and other things like that. For the first while, it was feeding that was hard and knowing that my baby was not gaining weight and thriving as he should. And now it is sleep. Now I feel like I cannot complain too much because Joash is doing just fine with his night sleeping. He has been doing 5-6 hour stretches pretty regularly. And the last few days he has been going to sleep pretty easily and with out much crying. Napping has been improving, but this is still where my struggle is. If you know me, you know I like to read and I have done a lot of reading and researching on sleep and napping. And of course, everyone has a different idea. Let your child cry it out. Don't let them cry it out at all. Only start having them cry it out when the child is fourth months old. Don't let any item become a sleep prop. Find your child's optimal wake time. It is overw...

When I thought about becoming a mom, I honestly wondered how much time I would have to do one activity I really love, which is reading. I have discovered that I do have time to read, especially during the night time feedings of my baby boy. I recently finished the entire O'Malley series by Dee Henderson and it was great. Each book focuses on one of seven siblings and his or her discovery of faith and love. The books are quite action packed as each of the siblings has a pretty high profile and intense job. I will confess that some night I stayed up way to late feeding my son because I didn't want to stop reading. For me these books were the right combination of action, romance and a quality Christian perspective. I highly recommend this series.

I have had contacts since grade 8. I am quite blind without them, as my husband can tell you. I have always had gas permeable contacts. While they are more expensive from the get go, they can last a long time and the slow down the changes in your eye. I have had my current pair for over a year and a half. The only thing that can be bad about these contacts is that you can lose them. Since they are pretty small and hard, they can bounce and fall into very small places. And since they are a bit expensive, you really don't want to replace them any more often then you need too. Last night, after I put Joash down for bed, I went to the bathroom to take out my contacts. I closed the drain on the sink (you don't want to lose a contact down the drain) and got everything ready to go. The right eye contact came out no problem. I took the left eye contact out and my hair brushed over my hand and the contact was gone. I didn't hear it hit anything, so I quickly examined my hair and my ...

Joash was pretty excited to have Wilbert around this morning, since Wilbert has the day free from milking. They had a pretty intense conversation after breakfast. They greeted each other politely. Practiced roaring. Told some jokes. And Joash proved his brilliance by showing his dad where his nose is. The smiles and coos are flowing freely now and it is so much fun!

Now that I have been out of high school for almost 11 years, it is neat to see and hear about what some of the people I knew are doing. It amazes me what many of my friends have accomplished. I have a few friends who have or are pursuing their PhD. I wrote a while back about my friend who is making it in the music business. Well, one of my friends started to make a name for herself already in high school. Lisa Velthouse was the Brio girl in 2000. She then went on to publish her first book Saving My First Kiss, while in college. Now her second book, Craving Grace, is coming out in May. I am pretty excited to get my hands on a copy, not only because I know Lisa, but also because I think her story will be very interesting.

I finally did it! I caught Joash smiling on camera! So enjoy as I know this will make you smile too.

This year for New Year's Eve we had a few people over to our house. We wanted to get together with some of our new friends and since we are the only one with a child, we decided it would be easier to have everyone here. We had a lot of food to last us all night long, which is good since we ended up playing a marathon game of Killer Bunnies. But the highlight of the night was the Gingerbread House contest. Our friends bought two Gingerbread house kits after Christmas and we had a little contest between the boys and the girls. The winner was left undecided, since the judge Joash was sleeping. The boys got pretty precise about the structure of their gingerbread house. A celebratory high five on some nicely placed decorations by the girls. The boys house (the good side any way). The girls house with our awesome tree.

He still can sleep just about any where. Where has the time gone? I can't believe my little boy is 10 weeks old already. We survived the two month immunizations. Thankfully he reacted to them by being extra sleepy, rather than extra cranky. He has a little cold right now too, but he is still pretty much his normal self. He keeps cooing and is continuing to smile even more. I saw several fleeting smiles this morning. But, of course, as soon as I grab the camera, he decides he is finished. He is quite strong in both his neck and his legs. He really enjoys standing up on feet with support. We had a wonderful New Year (more on that later this week), but I am looking forward to a week with no plans at all. I want to work hard this week on getting Joash to go down for sleep better. Once he is asleep, he does very well. But, if he gets over tired, he can't relax enough to fall asleep. For example, last night he slept from 9:45pm to 4:15am, but it took him 45 minutes to fall asleep. ...