Anna's New Moves

Anna has made incredible leaps in her mobility in the last few weeks.



First she invented her own little way of turning. While lying on her back, she did kind of a half-roll onto her side while kicking her legs in one direction. After repeating this several times she was able to completely turn her body like the hands on a clock. What was her motivation for this? Revenge. After months of D taking all of her toys away from her she managed to move herself into a position where she could kick down his tower of cardboard bricks.



Unfortunately this little move has rendered her bassinet unsafe and so we have had to begin the process of getting her to sleep in her crib in her own room. She is going to sleep pretty well on her own, but usually ends up in our bed sometime around 2:30a.m.



Shortly after her turning maneuver, Anna learned how to roll from her back to her tummy. She does this with ease and seems to think she's pretty hot stuff cause she does it every time I lay her down. There was a gap for about a week before she figured out how to roll back to her back and she doesn't really like being on her belly. Now she can roll to her back, but often forgets that she can and cries til someone flips her over.

And her latest development... She pulls her legs up under her and puts her butt up in the air and sort of crawls forward - inch worm style. She doesn't go very far and often doesn't move at all, but with a lot of effort she is making forward motion. Pretty unbelievable since she's not even 5 months old yet!

Oh Christmas Tree

We put up our tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. D was a great helper (for real!) He really enjoyed the process of helping to sort out the branches and putting up the ornaments. For weeks he has talked about the tall tree and how he helped "build tree." He has been much better with the ornaments this year - there are actually ornaments covering the whole tree! He has become obsessed with sorting the ornaments. There is a branch with stars, a branch with trains, a branch with animals... His favorite ornament is a moon-shaped one. I think it has actually found a permanent home in his toy box. I'm afraid he will be sad when the tree comes down within the next couple of days. I'm also afraid I have months of finding random Christmas decorations around the house in my future.

Lots of Visitors

Thanksgiving week and the time around it was a big blur of visitors for our family.

We started off the weekend before Thanksgiving with John, Melissa and Avery. David and Avery got along great this time. He played nicely with his little cousin and when she wasn't by his side he would call for her - "Eve, Eve." Anna liked her Uncle John and Aunt Melissa, giving Melissa lots of giggles and showing her approval for John by falling asleep in his arms.

Next we had friends Bryan, Ashley and Sydney here for Thanksgiving. We had lots of fun - David loves his girlfriend. She referred to him as "My David." They got into trouble together, working as a team to break into and eat a jar of chocolate Nesquick. We went to the mall to have pictures taken with Santa and had a ride on the carousel. The kids enjoyed some outside time even though it was cold. They were good little helpers with the leaf raking.

Finally we enjoyed the company of my parents and sister. I got a much needed break since Anna is as happy in my mom's arms as she is in mine. David got to show off all his toys and took his grandparents and aunt on a trip to one of his favorite places - Kids' Gym.

We thoroughly enjoyed the time with all our friends and family and found ourselves wishing for more after everyone had left.

Princess Giggles

Our little angel giggled for the first time on Thursday, November 15th. She laughed when I was bouncing her up and down on my stomach. Then she spit up all over me. The little lady is somewhat reserved with her giggles. What makes her laugh once will not often work again so we have fun trying to think of ways to get her going. At times she has enjoyed bouncing, flying, having her feet sniffed, playing peek-a-boo and being entertained by bad singing and dancing.

Signs of Good Parenting, I Think...

I guess I should take it as a good sign when my child cries to go to the library... We were driving past the library today with no plans to stop. David recognized the building and said "Book, Yes" over and over and over again until we got home. (We were just there two days ago!)

Last night I was trying to cook dinner quickly while the little angel was swinging and Mr. Sunshine was "helping." I didn't feel like rinsing out my cans and so I just tossed them in the trash. David retrieved them from the garbage can and took them to where I keep the recycling.

My Two Little Pumpkins

We had a wonderful Halloween last week. My clever idea of dressing them as a monkey and banana did not go as planned. David had been resisting wearing his costume, but I thought I could be tricky that day. He took a late nap and it was time to get dressed when he woke up. So I changed his diaper and put on the monkey costume, just like it was a regular outfit. Everything seemed to be going fine - until David noticed that he had a tail. This really upset him and he started yelling Off! Off! Off! So rather than fighting with him, I just put on his pumpkin sweatsuit. Anna wore her sparkly pumpkin princess outfit and they looked cute. We went to a Halloween party at my friend Kathy's house. David had fun playing outside with other kids and then went trick-or-treating. At first he didn't really understand what we were doing, but once he realized people were giving him candy he thought it was great. We trick-or-treated til his little legs gave out (probably only about 10 houses, but it was fun for him). Anna was along for the ride, sleeping in my arms as we walked from house to house.

Yes!

David's favorite argument right now is to repeatedly say yes. He wanted me to put a block away in his room yesterday - Way! Yes! Yes! Way! Yes, Yes, YES!! A few days ago he and Chris were playing soccer in the front yard and a little girl on her bike stopped to watch. He didn't want her there and told her so - Bye, Yes! Yes! Bye!

Buttons & Ducks

This weekend we took the little ones to a pumpkin patch and to an event called Truck Touch. The night before we went we told David that we were going to get pumpkins and see trucks. He is really trying hard to say all the words he hears, but most things come out beginning with b or d. Once we put him to bed we kept hearing "buttons, ducks, buttons, ducks" over and over again.

He loved his trip to the pumpkin patch! I think he tried to pick up every pumpkin in the field. It was cute watching him try to figure out which ones he could lift and which were too big. We did a hay ride. David was a little scared of the tractor at first, but enjoyed his ride after it got going. Anna gave her stamp of approval by falling asleep.

The Truck Touch was a fund raiser for a local church. They had a fire truck, ambulance, cement mixer, dump truck, and best of all (if you're a 2 year old boy), a garbage truck! The kids were able to climb up in the trucks and honk the horns. This was super exciting for our junior trucker. The best part of the day was the playground - the actual ground, that is. It was made of chopped up old tires. Someone had put some play dump trucks out and David spent a long time loading and dumping the tire material.

Carving the pumpkin was a fun experience. David didn't want to touch the pumpkin guts at all (but neither did Daddy). He was very attentive though and demanded a very clean pumpkin (Deen Button Yes).

Bragging

I will probably eat my words sometime soon, but I have to brag about what a great little angel I have. She goes to sleep on her own at night and sleeps anywhere from 6 to 9 hours in a stretch! I can't believe she's doing this at just 8 weeks old!

Two!

Last night when I was putting David to bed I couldn't find Puppy anywhere so I quickly grabbed the back-up out of the laundry room. I meant to search for the first one after he went to bed and forgot all about it. So this evening David is playing and finds one, looks across the room at the other, grabs both, smiles devilishly and exclaims "TWO!"

Can't fool David

For a while now I've kept a back-up puppy hidden on the shelf of my laundry room so I can do a quick switch if puppy gets too dirty or lost. I've suspected that David knew about it. So yesterday we're playing at our neighbor's house and David gets upset because his friend Matt takes his puppy. Matt's mom offers to get Matt his dog so that he will return puppy to David. Their laundry room is set up in the kitchen just like mine. David immediately gets excited and runs to the laundry room and starts pointing up at the shelves. Apparently he thought that all laundry rooms come with back-up puppies!

We had a fun outing to the zoo this morning. Anna slept through it all. David's favorite part was playing in the mulch at the children's zoo playground. I took lots of pictures but am having memory issues with my computer. It seems to think I take too many pictures and won't let me add more.

The first David and Anna update

I decided that I wanted a way to share information about the kids with everyone at once. So I'm going to try to update this every few days so that you can check in at anytime and find out how we're all doing.



Now for an update on my funny little sunshine boy and the sleepiest little angel...



David is sitting with me now finishing his lunch of hotdogs, cheetos and peaches. The cheetos were a hit except that he didn't like the orange residue left behind on his fingers and plate. He is getting over some kind of virus - he had a fever of 102 yesterday. Hopefully this will not be the first thing he choses to share with his sister. He seems to be his normal self today. His favorite thing to play now is dumping things. He loads whatever he can (legos, stuffed animals, diapers & one time before I caught on, ice cubes!) into his dump truck and transfers it into a box of some kind. He is quite proud of himself when he does this and tells us he's awesome - DayDay Awes!He still loves watching his garbage truck video and narrates as it plays - Dump dirt! Squash cars! I'm thinking he may be a garbage man for Halloween.


As for the little angel Anna, she is a smiley girl now. After a few days of almost smiling, she flashed a great big smile right on her 6 week birthday. We were in the elevator after my doctor's appointment. A couple ladies saw it and gushed about how adorable she was. She seems to be a morning person - that's when she gives the best smiles. She is also a big girl too! Her six week check-up was this morning. She weighs 11 pounds, 2 1/2 ounces and is 22 inches long. Her height and head circumference are in the 90th percentile and her weight is in the 75th. We just hope she keeps it up after all that big brother put us through with his growth. She is a good sleeper too - often going for 6 or even 7 hours for the first part of the night. That definitely makes life easier for me.