Compassion

David nearly made me cry with his kindness this week. A family in our playgroup lost their home in a fire. I was sorting through some of his old toys to share with the family while he was playing downstairs. He came up in the middle of my sorting and wanted his toys. I explained to him that this boy had lost all of his toys and would David mind if we gave away a few of his toys. After thinking about it for a minute he quickly filled a shoebox with cars and trucks. I kept reminding him that he wouldn't get these toys back to be sure he was okay with me giving them away and he kept reassuring me that he wanted to give them to "that big kid who lost all his toys." When we went to playgroup the next day he was so excited to give away the toys and kept asking when his friend would arrive.

I have just spent a lot of time reading over my old entries while in the process of making a photobook of Anna's first year.  Reading them reminded me how quickly I forget the funny little moments of everyday.  So I have got to get back on track!

Our house is all ready for Christmas.  A fun tradition that we started this year is The Elf on the Shelf.  It freaked David out at first.  When asked to name his elf, he wanted to call him "Bad News" and "Bad Guy!"  Since the elf's name will be around for years to come we intervened and named him Jack.  The elf changes locations every morning (after his nightly visit to Santa to report on the kids' behavior).  Both kids love looking for him each morning.  Anna found him first today (in all fairness to David she was up nearly 3 hours before him).  She saw him hanging from the paper chain that counts down the days til Christmas, laughed and yelled out "Jack!"  When David got up he couldn't find him and Anna was so proud that she could lead her brother to the elf.  

It's hailing/sleeting (I don't know the difference between all those) - gross!  I am not adjusting well to winter weather.  David is looking forward to the first real snowfall.  A white Christmas would be beautiful, I'll admit... 

David is so excited about Christmas this year and Anna feeds off of his excitement for everything.  I think it will be so much fun this year.  

Anna has so many words in her vocabulary now that I can't even try to count.  She will try to repeat almost anything.  Some of the cutest are belly button, Dayday or Deeeed (for David, depending on how excited or mad she is), monkey, bubble... She says so many words correctly that you wouldn't expect her to know.  She is very energetic.  She loves playing rough and can be aggressive at times.   She adores cats, likes to help feed Penny, throws her cup everytime she's in her booster seat, says NO all the time, gives huge hugs, feeds herself with a spoon or fork, and loves to read books.  She also does a very cute gorilla impression.  Oh, and is super attached to me.  It's very sweet, but I can't often leave the room without her screaming.  

David is becoming very independent.  He can dress himself and does a pretty nice job picking out clothes that match.  He loves to do arts & crafts.  Scissors are his favorite art supply which can be messy but can keep him entertained for long periods of time.  He is trying to figure out abstract concepts like measurement and time.  He often asks how long things are, when things will happen, and how long things will take.  He loves dogs more than anything in the world and sleeps with about 20 of them in his bed each night.  More and more often he is sweet to his sister.  They are learning to play together nicely.  It is a wonderful change!  He talks all the time, earning himself the nickname "Mouth."  Though his speech and voice sound like a child, his words and phrases sound like a mini adult.  He will tell me that something looks fantastic or remind me that a lego house needs a good foundation.  He has gotten very good about remembering to say please and thank you, but gets frustrated when I do need to remind him.  He is inexplicably scared of caves.  

Pumpkin Pumpkin

We braved the arctic winds yesterday to venture out to get a pumpkin for Halloween. Ok, it was probably in the 50's but it sure felt cold. Anna picked out a big round pumpkin and for David? A little yellow gourd. Today he decided it was time to carve both pumpkins. I had read about a pumpkin carving technique for kids D's age so we tried it out. After scooping the guts, he took a golf tee and a hammer to the gourd. The result is a pretty cool lamp with lots of little rays of light coming out. He was also head designer for the Jack-O-Lantern face. He decided that it should be a happy pumpkin. I asked him if a triangle was ok for the nose and he said "no, it look like this" and pointed to his own nose. He prefered oval eyes to circles and insisted on straight eyebrows and hair. I must say it's the cutest pumpkin I've ever carved and we had a great time doing it.

One!

Ok I better do Anna's one year old update before she gets any older. So she's actually getting pretty close to 14 months now.



She is a huge talker. She got started with mama around 9 months, quickly adding dada and dayday. Dog and cat (dah/daa) came next. Recently she has just been exploding with words... ball, more, milk, juice, bath, bubble, wow, flower, Dottie, night-night, book & down are just some of the words that she regularly uses. And although they don't sound near perfect they are consistent enough that we know what she's saying most of the time. I almost forgot NO! For a couple of weeks it was her very favorite word and we heard it all the time. She has stopped saying it so frequently lately with the addition of so many new words. Uh oh is also a favorite - how does every baby learn the "game" of tossing a sippy cup from a booster seat and calling out "UH OH?!?"



Little princess started walking the day before she turned one. She just took a couple baby steps at a time for about a month. Just recently she decided it was time to walk! She went from taking a few steps and falling down to being able to walk from room to room practically overnight. She prefers walking to crawling now and only falls down when she gets going too fast. The only thing she likes better than walking is climbing! Little girl is part monkey! She spends too much of her time trying to climb on the kids' table in the living room. Even a pretty big fall from it has not deterred her. I had to put a tent over her bed for fear that she might try to climb out the crib. She is fearless at the playground, going up steps and down slides without caring where I am.

To my joy she has recently started to enjoy listening to books. Her favorite books are I Love Cats and Goodnight My Duckling. We read Goodnight My Duckling nine times before nap today! How can I resist her though? She gets a book, says "Boooo, booooo," walks over to me, turns around and backs up into my lap. It is the sweetest thing.

The Three Year Old

Catching up with David...

At 3, here are some of his favorites:

Food - fruit snacks (boot nacks, as he would say), juice, candy, doughnuts
Animal - dogs
Color - yellow
TV shows - Caillou, Clifford
Toys - train tracks, anything Anna has first
Books - No David, Astair the Bear, Batman versus Joker
Movies - Making Tracks to Great Destinations (Thomas), Where the Garbage Goes, Finding Nemo
Silly Stuff - playing Peek-a-boo, building lego houses for his puppies, saying "you bad news"
Places to Go - any park, outside in general, grocery store, Avery's house

D is potty-trained now. He loves reading books and building train tracks with his Thomas set. He loves being around adults - he was the life of the party at his Uncle Jeff's wedding. Sharing with his sister is still a challenge though the "no baby"s have definitely decreased. He is learning soccer and basketball through our local park district. This is an interesting experience for him - his first structured anything. He is learning to follow directions and stay with the group. Oh yeah and maye how to dribble a ball. D still loves to help cook, recycle, feed the animals. The other day he was so excited to be allowed to watch me clean the toilets while Anna was napping. He talks all the time and inquires "why" all day long. He is a sweet little man - he asks about his friends and family when they are not around and will say "Me love you!"

The last 6 weeks...

Where to begin? On May 17th we left our home in Hoover with all our belongings in a UHaul truck to start our new adventure. Chris and our stuff went to Ohio for him to continue his job search there while the kids and I, along with both cats and Penny came to Michigan to enjoy summer on the beach. It has been stressful and crazy but we have sold our house in Alabama, put a house in Cincinnati under contract and Chris is a month into a new job.

Little Miss A has made some serious changes in that time. She says mama and nanna (Anna). She waves hi and bye-bye. She has started signing - all done, more & milk. She responds to her name and the word no. Just recently she can stand by herself for a short amount of time and loves to "walk" while I hold her hands up. She is always moving and squealing. A very happy baby during waking hours... Nights have been a challenge for her but she's getting better.

The little man will be 3 in just a few weeks. I'm hoping that the terrible twos will expire at that time but I doubt it as he came into it a bit late. Listening and eating continue to be a fight with him (and I can't even think about potty training) but he is still delightful much of the time. He loves playing at parks, anything related to trains and making friends at the beach. His vocabulary continues to improve all the time. He speaks in sentences much of the time and continues to ask why at least 50 times a day. He has had so much fun getting to see more of his family... So much more that he had to refer to everyone as "that guy" til he started putting names together. He loves his guys and insists on having Grandpa put him to bed every night.

Ahhh!

Anna can crawl up the stairs.

David figured out how to open the child-safe cabinet locks.