Turning 2

Sister is now a two year old, and 5 days into it isn't too terrible!





She did much more spitting on her cake than blowing out the candles, so Mommy pitched in to help.





She's such a girl, wiping her hands on her napkin. The girl is eating like a champ, and loves to hold her fork while eating with her fingers. Maybe soon she'll realize she can keep a whole lot cleaner using utensils.







She's my little baby doll lover. I hope a real live baby in the house will be just as exciting!

Some cute things she's been doing lately include:

-Counting, "One, two, one, two, forty, ten!"
-"Whhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyy?" Seriously, a four-seven syllable word every time.
-Potty-training herself, what a champ!
-Speaking in sentences
-Precisely pronouncing her "L" sound, especially in choc-o-late
-Body-guarding her Daddy when another little girl dared to talk to him. She was a -human shield, silent and intimidating (sorta) She does call him "My daddy" even to me.
-naming all the toddlers in her Sunday school class, too cute
-When you ask her what a horse says, she replies, "Clip Clop" while clicking her tongue, forget the neigh business. We pass a lot of buggies on our drives to and from Grammy's house. Since she can't see the horse, she only listens.
-Holds crayons and pencils and pens just like an adult and leans over to color with such care.
-Peers at the baby growing through my belly button
-Sounds out letters like Brother is learning to do except like this, "Ah, ah, ah, ah, D!"

Memorial Day

It was threatening rain but we went to the carnival anyway. We even promised Sister a pony ride!

No ponies this year. :(

They still had fun on the kiddie rides.


Brother and Cousin rode the little roller coaster. As they were being strapped in, the ride operator told them to raise their arms, so they did. As soon as it started to move, Cousin put her arms down but I'm pretty sure Brother was afraid the ride operator would disapprove, so his stayed in the air!


Ice cream rounded out the evening and since Leah is still a little short for some of the rides, she hung out on Dad's shoulders!

The budding photographer

Brother likes to grab the digital camera and wonder around his little world taking pictures. He has quite the eye for an-almost-4-year-old!







He has also asked for a new baby for his birthday. I'm so glad he seems eager about another sibling, he did not take to Sister very well. Sister, loves to play with her baby dolls, so I think a real baby will thrill her!

Crackers

Sister likes crackers, and I couldn't think of a title.

Here is possibly the only picture of Brother where his whole face is not scrunched into a monster cheesy grin.



We might have some issues when the baby comes, but her intentions are good. Our poor 8 month old friend is Sister's testing ground...a lot of smothering hugs and kisses. Sister doesn't like that real babies move when they want when her baby dolls don't move until she makes them. Her baby dolls always sleep with a blanket over their face, and if you grab them by the foot or hair or arm, then that's how you carry them! Maybe 7 months is enough time to work it out.



When quiet time was demanded by mom, we all picked a good book and got comfortable.





I've been asked what will happen when there are three and I already use Sister and Brother. For the moment we refer to it as Brister, until we know the sex. After, they will Baby to you for a while, then maybe we'll add Little to the appropriate label. I'm open to suggestions.

Tree house

Pop built Brother his very own tree house. These are some of the first pictures. The leaves have since grown in, a Red Maple, making it feel like it has walls and a roof. There has also been a slide added for a quick and safe exit (especially since Sister can't climb back down the ladder).



When Brother first saw it, he ran inside to get toys. He came out with a truck and a vacuum cleaner. He heard "house" and wanted to clean it. Not really sure what I think about that! He has since moved on to leaves, sticks, scrap wood and pine cones. The recent addition of a blue bucket and pulley assembly has really made it easy and fun to move, rearrange and build collections in the tree house.



Binochulars are very important for spying birds (or as Sister says, "boids") in the tree. Unfortunately Brother does not know which end to look through, but he has fun. When Husband first say the tree house, he climbed right up and talked over design plans with Pop for second stories. Apparently it is every boy's dream to have a tree house and Pop and Husband harbor a little jealousy that Brother actually has his as a boy!

If I remember to take the camera outside more often there will be lots of tree house pictures. Pop also thought of the girl and added a bucket swing since would live in one if she could. Adult size benches are also provided for supervising adults. It is quite the outdoor hot spot.

The Kiddos

We went to the beach last Saturday and the kids had a great time. Brother swam in the 50 degree ocean, wet head to toe, and Sister exfoliated in the sand. They were a mess but loved it. They also enjoyed screaming about the bathroom naked after their shower. A good exhausting trip!

 

 

 

 

One more thing...


Live and in person this November.

Sunny Mornings

What a great few days we are having! Bright snshine, warm afternoons, lots and lots of playing outside. Grammy's deck is always a fun place to play.

 

 

Pictures

It's been a while so here's an update.

Sister has decided that she wants to use the potty so we have sorta started potty training her. She likes to sit on the potty, do her business (not the stinky kind yet), wipe with a tissue, inspect her work and run around and play with her undies and pants around her ankles. She is quite the goof. No pictures of that though. She has also decided to use the phrase "uh-huh" which she makes while emphatically nodding her head, which is a new skill learned that is celebrated often. Not to mention Mommy and Daddy think it is really cute. Perhaps a video of that will come shortly.

Brother has started teaching himself to sound out letters and beginnings of words; likes to discuss rain, sunlight, prisms, and rainbows; can count to 100 while only skipping 15 and saying 20 10 instead of thirty etc; and is trying to figure out the difference between truth and lies.

Pictures of the kiddos cuddling and various hats. I picked out Brother's penguin jammies ;)!

 

 

 

 

Factory Worker

We went to Chocolate World with Grandpa and Gran. The kiddos got factory hats and got to shake up some Hershey's Kisses. Sister was the most dedicated of all the workers in her group...maybe ever.

Shake it!

 

 

 

 

Hats

 

We've had a little snow...

Brother says, "Too deep!" and he keeps losing his boot.

 

Sister says, "stuck!"

 

Tank says, "Excellent!"

 

Mommy still says "I love snow!"

 

Conversation

Last evening at dinner E and I had a nice long conversation while we waited for daddy to come home.

In between bites (because we are really working on not talking with our mouth full) E's stomach gurgled so loudly I could hear it over L's whining. We both had a laugh and he asked me what that sound was. I jump into a three year old explanation of gastric juices and digestion. E nodded knowingly and says, "So I chew my food and it goes down my throat and then my belly gurgles it up." Rudimentary digestion at its finest. I go on eating.

While I am blithely chewing my food, my son is mulling over various complexities of life and suddenly blurts out, "Chickens hatch from eggs!" We aren't even eating chicken. I beam at my little genius and ask, "What else hatches from eggs?" He lists dinosaurs, other birds and turtles. Now this is the moment I make my mistake. Instead of nodding and encouraging the listing of egg laying creatures like fish, spiders or alligators, I ask, "Did you hatch from an egg?" E wrinkles his nose, sticks out his tongue and sarcastically says, "No no no no no no, no way mommy." We continue eating and I am mid-bite when it comes. "But, where did I come from mommy?"

Great. I am all about answering honestly and accurately any questions I get from the kids, but seriously, he's three and how much does he really want to know. Stressed, I ramble something like, "Well, do you remember when Leah was in my belly? You used to grow in my belly too, and then when you were just right, you were born." Pondering, he finishes his bite and asks, "But how did I get out?" Thinking of his vocabulary and not wanting to introduce the terms labor and delivery, I went with this, "Well, you came out through a tunnel inside my body." I wince, waiting for the follow-up. It takes an enormously long time for him to chew and swallow and finally I hear a sniffle. I look into his big dark, now sad eyes and wonder what I could have possibly said to make him sad when he says, "Did you chew me up to put me in your belly?" Relieved he didn't ask to see the tunnel, I explain that babies don't grow in stomachs and have nothing to do with digestion... when daddy walks through the door and the conversation is mercifully abandoned.

Wagon

 

Some friends from church gave us their wagon their kids had outgrown. It turned walks to the mailbox into bumpy wild rides! Sister sits like a queen in her carriage, and Brother enjoys using his muscles to pull her. It's also great to just get a ride from Mommy.

I also discovered that pulling a wagon is a little bit of an art form, especially on a hill! Our first trip home had the wagon on two wheels and the kids making sounds somewhere between a laugh, cry and scream. In the end, we all tumbled in the grass giggling. Husband didn't seem to have any problems pulling them the next day, maybe I just need to work out!

 

Mighty Sister

She's such a little girl. Just today we went to the doctor and she is maintaining a weight in the 10th percentile and a height (or length since she gets measured lying down) in the 75th percentile. She may be little but she is mighty. Much to Brother's annoyance she keeps up rather well and her language has reached a mighty point of "no! me! mine!". She only says "down", never "up" and she loves to point at sleeping people and say "shh".

Just recently her hair is mighty enough to be put in a teeny tiny ballerina bun on the back of her teeny tiny perfectly round head:

 

Then the mighty mane is unleashed as bathtime gets underway!