Our merry December

Here's a brief recap of our fun and exciting December. First, Rachel has been reunited with her beloved snow. Delicious stuff, as always. We've had at least six days with snowfall already this month--and several more predicted before January--so she's had lots of opportunities to play in (and eat) the snow. This photo was taken shortly before she told me she wanted to have a snowball fight. Our "snowball fight" lasted about thirty seconds--enough time for me to toss a snowball at her belly and miss, smacking her instead square in the face. She decided she doesn't like snowball fights after all. But maybe on her next birthday she'd like to try it again. (Yes, we're already making plans for her next birthday. Rachel knows there are a lot of things that will happen "when she's bigger," and her points of reference for that are "on my next birthday" and "when I go to high school." We've got substantial to-do lists for both of those occasions! Hope there's time for cake and algebra, respectively!)



Nathan hasn't really been out to play in the snow yet. We were sort of waiting to see if he'd walk soon, but he isn't showing much interest in bipedalism, so perhaps we'll get him out soon for some snow crawling. He has discovered the dress-up drawer this month, though! Actually, he doesn't care so much for the fairy wands, tutus, and clompy shoes. It's just this hat that has caught his interest. Can you blame him? It's quite a fun hat! He tries to get it on his own head, then holds it out to us and says, "Eh, eh, eh," until we help him put it on.




Then both kids had the opportunity to meet Santa when he stopped by Nana and Papa's house. Rachel was very glad to see him...



...but Nathan wasn't so sure! I think the arched-back-on-Santa's-lap photo is a required rite of passage, at least in our family, so it's good that Nathan carried on the tradition.



We had a nice Christmas yesterday. Santa visited our house, too, and left goodies in our stockings...



and under the tree. He knew that Rachel is taking swimming lessons--and that she likes pink!



We hope you had a merry Christmas, too! Enjoy the rest of 2009!

Rachel's school

So, Rachel's been going to school for a few months now, and she's become quite an old hand at it. When I first drop her off in the morning, I usually have to remind her to tell me goodbye--otherwise, she'd be off and playing without a glance over her shoulder. After they have some free play time, there is circle time. (Most of what I know about what goes on at school, I've learned from the very specific instructions I'm given when we play school. I always have to be the teacher, and my student doesn't cut me much slack when I don't know the routine!) Among other things, they assign jobs during circle time. Rachel's favorite job seems to be Getting the Juice--she signs up for that job nearly every day. She tells me that her favorite part of school is the free play time, and her favorite thing to do then is play with the kitchen. And get this: the kitchen at school has little baskets to hold the food! (Relayed directly from my enthusiastic source.)

During art time, they make all sorts of projects. There is much gluing. In this photo, you see Rachel holding her Family Tree and an ice cream cone. (They were learning about triangles and the number three--what better project than a triple-dip cone?!) For some reason, the Family Tree came home with no brother on it, but Rachel made one at home later. He's orange. Rachel is pink. Click the photo if you'd like to see it larger.


Some other tidbits Rachel would like me to share with you:
--AJ holds the ear parts of the stethoscope on his back and the rest on his tummy. Isn't he silly?
--Michael had a bloody nose one day.
--Yesterday's snack was oatmeal cookies--what a treat!

Seems like I hear more about her classmates' days than I do about her day, usually gathered in bits and pieces throughout the days following school. As far as I can tell, though, she generally enjoys school.

Happy birthday, Nathan!

The birthday season continues around here--Nathan is one year old! Crazy to think that just a year ago, we were convincing Rachel what fun it would be to be a big sister--and convincing Nathan what fun it would be to be born. Nathan is convinced--he's having a lot of fun on the outside. (Rachel goes back and forth.) He cruises along furniture, climbs like a mountaineer, empties drawers with gusto, and presses buttons and flips switches like an engineer.

Nathan at age one--what a charmer!


His birthday was fun. He enjoyed his cake--with gusto, as you'll see here. (Not sure if the clump behind his ear was to save for later, but he was pretty determined to keep it there!)



He got a cuddly puppy dog and took a pretty quick liking to him.


Here's Nathan on his actual birthday--he's become interested in clothing (Am I in trouble or what? Rachel didn't even find the BPC until she was older than this!) and loves to try to put on hats, socks, sweaters, and shoes.



Happy birthday, sweet Nathan! Thanks for a whole year of joy!

P.S. Big news...As of this week, our one-year-old sleeps (mostly) through the night--hurrah! I think I said something when he was a month or so old about his being gifted because he could roll over and all developmental milestones thereafter being a joke. This joke was on us. I don't even know when babies are "supposed" to sleep through the night, but I suspect it is before 12 months! I am slowly beginning to emerge from my year-long fog, and that is a good thing. Thanks for all your prayers and somnolent thoughts.

Our colorful Halloween

We had a lot of fun today! We took advantage of a break in the almost-daily October rains to do some leaf-raking and outside play this afternoon. Nathan let his sister give him a ride on Scoots McGoo--usually he insists on pushing it around the yard himself.


AND THEN...it was time for trick-or-treating! Rachel and Nathan got all gussied up in their (thankfully, warm!) costumes and headed out to collect some loot. First they let us take a few pictures. Rachel was a pink crayon...


Nathan was a green crayon...

And they looked darling together!


(I plan to stretch out this sticking-felt-on-clothes-and-calling-it-a-costume gig as long as they'll let me. Think it will work in middle school?)

Rachel did a great job of climbing up and down lots of steps to all the neighborhood porches and ended up with a fair bit of loot. She spent the rest of the evening playing with her candy--sorting it, counting it, making towers with it, and putting it in all manner of boxes, bags, mittens, etc. (There is currently candy everywhere. She may be part squirrel.) Nathan played with candy, too--he put his new emptying skills to work on our bowl of treats by the front door. The kid has a good arm--some of the candy flew several feet!



All told, we had a very nice Halloween. We hope you did, too!

Rachel is 3!

We had quite a big day yesterday--we woke up and found a three-year-old in our house! It's been fun to celebrate with Rachel--this is the first year that she really gets what we're excited about, and she's excited, too. In fact, she spent most of the day excited, I think. There was a lot of giddy laughter around here. Rachel has been asking to hear the story of when she was born a lot lately, so she seems really to understand the connection between birthdays and birth days, which is cool. It's good to know that the magical thinking persists, though--she was pretty sure that the pile of birthday cards and new magazine at her place at breakfast had been placed there directly by the mail carrier. She wondered if the mail carrier had also brought the balloon.

Rachel has recently decided that she really likes pigs. (I think it's because they're pink, but we haven't discussed her attraction too much, so I can't say for certain.) And so we celebrated with a pig cake. (If I dare say so myself, it turned out pretty cute--and it tasted good, too!)

Rachel had loads and loads of ideas about how she'd celebrate her birthday. If we'd done everything she had planned, we'd be partying hard until Thursday, so we had to edit the agenda a bit. But a Dora pinata came up again and again and again, so that dream became reality. Quite a sweet reality, if you ask Rachel. We pulled the ribbons instead of bashing Dora's head in, since we were in the house. Rachel has been seen hugging and talking to the pinata ever since, so it's probably a good thing we went that route.


Here are the two birthday girls and the one new birthday doll. Hard to believe this amazing little girl who has changed our lives has only been around for three years--and yet, it's like yesterday that she came wailing into our lives. We love you, Rachel Baby!

Glamour girl

Rachel, who has long been interested in clothes (newer readers may want to look back at the tale of the BPC, from her early days of fashion sense), has recently developed a fascination with makeup. I'm honestly not sure where this came from. I mean, I know that she's just interested in exploring the concept and wondering what she might look like and all that. What I wonder is where she even figured out what makeup is, since it's not like her mother puts on lipstick for playgroup--or for anything else, for that matter. Rachel herself has been getting a lot of practice. We had to "disappear" her markers after one too many bathtimes spent scrubbing washable marker off her every inch. (Weirdest thing: these washable markers wash off everything--except people!) Then, when we went to the children's museum one day a few weeks ago, I spent a couple of minutes watching Nathan crawl around on some pillows while Rachel painted a mirror--and, apparently, herself, to stunning effect. She looks quite pleased with the result:


With her "lipstick" only in the center of her lips, she reminds me of Janis from The Muppet Show.


And, just because it's such a neat photo, here's Nathan's turn in the giant kaleidoscope:

Nathan eats

Nathan has made good use of his incisors this summer--they arrived just in time for the midwest's bounty of sweet corn, which Nathan has thoroughly enjoyed! It took him a little while to figure out how to eat the corn off the middle of the cob--for a few weeks, he'd just eat a centimeter from each end, so I'd cut off the ends and give him back the rest of the ear at the next meal. But now he's got it:


He also got some help from Papa when we went apple picking a few weeks ago, so now he can't watch anyone eat an apple without wanting in on the action!

And just today, as we were unloading groceries and left the pantry open, he found the good stuff:

Then at lunch today, he fed me some of his alphabet soup--shoved letters and carrots into my mouth. What a sweet boy. He must have learned sharing from his ever-gracious big sister. Either that, or he's figured out her trick of "sharing" to help her plate look empty enough to get dessert!

Whose daughter is she?

Rachel no longer naps every afternoon, but she does spend a little "quiet time" in her room--usually sitting in her bed with a big pile of books. Oddly enough, she has fallen asleep for a good long nap on each of the last four Wednesdays. When I went in to check on her this Wednesday, here's what I found:


There's nothing like curling up with a good book!

She also likes to spend as much time as possible upside-down. Headstands on the floor, on the couch, on her bed, walking her feet up the wall. She says she wants to be a ballerina when she grows up, but gymnastics apparently holds quite a bit of allure, too!

There's hope for him

So he's back to not sleeping, but Nathan can CRAWL! A proper, hands-and-knees crawl, at that! We're very proud. (And relieved that he'll be able to read someday, according to all those studies designed to freak out parents. Not that we were freaked out. Just relieved now that we don't have to freak out.) This picture is of him crawling in the pool on Monday, but he crawls everywhere--carpet, grass, hard floor. Since he's no longer doing the belly-slide, the knees of his pants are catching up to the fronts of his shirts--all gray.

What's more, this child can climb. Observe:

Note the pillow on the floor. Little monkey pushed that pillow into place so he could get up on the trunk. (I've since moved the trunk!)

Big girl bed

It's here! It's beautiful! It's cozy! It's being slept in right now! (First nap all week--Mommy is much delighted!)

Here's Rachel's laughing-with-delight face, right after we made it up for the first time.

Nathan also thought it was pretty fun (or, at least, he was excited that his adored Rachel was so happy) and stood beside the bed giggling for a while.

Backyard bounty

We're having a lot of fun in the yard lately. Our garden is finally coming through for us, and Nathan loves to crawl around and rummage in the dirt and get absolutely filthy. He can amuse himself pretty independently for a while out there, and it's surprisingly seldom that I have to fish dirt or sticks or whatever out of his mouth.

Here they are, sneaking up on a squirrel or something. (We're very stealthy, as you might imagine.)

Our carrots were superlatively stubby, but get a load of those grapes! We've made jam once already, and there's another whole batch out on the fence, I think. (Not that we get any credit for the grapes. Some previous owner gets that--these are old, beautiful vines.)

Backpacks and mysteries

Rachel started school this week, with what felt (to me) like surprisingly little pomp. I was all worried about getting everyone ready in time, but really, getting out of the house in time for 9:00 preschool is not so bad. At least, not yet--perhaps I'll be singing a different tune when we need coats, boots, a shoveled walk, and a cleaned-off car before we can leave! Anyway, we got to the school and she marched right in and found the hook with her name above it and hung her (adorably small) backpack from the hook. (We'd visited before, so she knew which classroom would be hers, and she'd looked longingly at the hooks many a time, wishing her name were on one of the signs.) Then we waited a while and chatted with some other moms and kids (who all seemed to have baby brothers along, interestingly enough--perhaps we'll be hanging out with this same crowd of moms again in a couple of years!) until Miss Edna came and opened the classroom door. Then she marched right in and started playing with toys and the bean table. She may have glanced up when I kissed her good-bye; I'm not sure. And she had a marvelous day! Her job at snack time was to pass out the napkins--she told me later that her dream job is to get the juice, and she's longing for the day she can do that one. Her favorite part of school was coloring.

All of this I was prepared for--the jumping right in, the loving coloring time, etc. I was not prepared--though I was aware that this was coming--for how goofy our conversations would become, once she had things to talk about that I had no experience of. She sang a song repeatedly at lunch about four little hamburgers going out to play. Four little hamburgers? This is weirder than adel! I asked if it was a song she made up, or one she learned at school, and she told me, "I just learned it." So she pretty effectively evaded my question. On further renditions, I decided that she learned it from her own blond head, since it's sort of like a mash-up of three or four songs and poems I know she's heard or sung at some point, if we can allow hamburgers to stand in for helicopters. Anyway, not knowing where it came from sort of threw me for a loop. Then add to that all the questions I can't really answer--"Why will you have to go to the hospital if you touch leaves?" (Did they see some poison ivy on their walk? Does Miss Edna keep them in line through fear? Has Rachel made another mash-up of several answers to several questions and created a new one?)--and you see that I am getting all sorts of new sleuthing challenges to keep my intellect sharp! (Oh, for balancing equations and stoichiometry...so clear, so, so...tidy!)

So that is a long story to tell that Rachel really likes school. (Her job the second day was to clean up the tables. And some boys were hitting. But they got told not to hit by the esteemed Miss Edna, so all was well. Still waiting for her turn to get the juice!)

Here she is, about to go to school!

Sleepy Boy

News alert: NATHAN SLEPT ALL NIGHT!!! Friday night he woke around 10 but was pretty willing to go back to sleep with a little rocking from David. Next thing I knew, it was 6:30 am and I was praying that he was alive. (Alive he was, and mighty hungry, as he let me know with a holler just a few minutes later.) Hurrah! Then he was up three times last night, but now that he's shown us what he can do, we have great expectations for our lad. So thank you for all your sleepy prayers. Please keep them coming!

What a good sport!

Some have predicted that Nathan will be late to talk, because he'll never get a word in edgewise. I'm not so sure. It's also quite possible that he'll be motivated to talk early, if only to stand up for himself! I give you Exhibit A:

Here's the backstory: Rachel found two long pink ribbons. She wanted one around her head, to make herself "pretty for a street infestival." (She saw a street festival last week and has been quite intrigued with the idea ever since, except that now it apparently involves some sort of plague.) Then she wanted one around Nathan's head so they could get married. This is their wedding picture. He looks pretty happy here, doesn't he? I wonder how long she's got to dress him up in ribbons and tutus.

And for those of you who haven't yet gotten to see Nathan wave (because he's still rather stingy about showing off his new skills), here's your chance:

Rachel's special letter

We're working on learning as much as possible before school starts. Rachel can already write the letter...well, watch and see!

Mmmmm...o's

Do you remember the scene in Charlotte's Web where Wilbur stands in his feed trough and revels in the sensation of the slops running down around him, getting caught behind his ears, etc.? We had a similar (though not as, well, sloppy) scene in Nathan's Kitchen this morning. While I was in the bathroom, Helpful Big Sister decided to pour more Cheerios for Nathan. It was a nearly full box. It is no longer so. I just heard the cereal cascade...and cascade...and cascade. By the time I arrived on the scene, the tray was full of o's, as was Nathan's whole seat, as was the floor surrounding him. He was like a cereal dispenser--every time he moved his legs, more o's trickled out of his chair and down to the floor. It was funny! Nathan was quite amused, too.

Water Babies

Both Rachel and Nathan have discovered this week that they love playing in water. For Rachel, it's a rediscovery--she and water were on the outs for a while, but they're back together now. And for Nathan, this is a glorious new thing. We've had a lot of opportunities to play in the water lately, with visits to the beach and the fountain in quick succession.

Rachel fell quickly back into her fountain routine--if this pose doesn't look familiar, take a look here.

And Nathan showed us how much he liked it, not just with his huge smile (which is seldom far from his face, anyway) but with this awesome dance:

Our two Things finally wore their matching Cleveland shirts--and even matched in being pantsless at the beach! Thanks to Grand-Merr and Grandpa for these cute shirts!

Undies update

Thought you all, as her fans, might like to know that Rachel is wearing undies during all her waking hours lately--even out of the house! (That is, when we get ourselves together enough to actually get out of the house.) Talk about a proud smile...when she's sitting on the pot, her face lights up as soon as she feels her success, every time. Lots of great accomplishments around our house lately! Life is changing very fast...

Three teeth to the wind

So Nathan's second tooth finally popped through! We were delighted and thought this might mean he'd start sleeping better again. Then I looked in his mouth and saw that his top gums are all swollen with burgeoning new teeth, too. Poor kid can't catch a break! But those top choppers are quick--one is through already, though not visible to the casual observer. Here are the bottom two, in the mouth of one happy banana-eater:

Proud smiles

Rachel had her first gymnastics class last night. She liked it okay. I wish you all could have seen the grin on her face as she ran and marched and bunny-hopped around the gym. It was the highlight of my week, to be sure! And then, when Coach Mandy called her up to help demonstrate how to slither like a snake under a bar...I hadn't thought she could grin wider after the marching, but I was wrong! It warms my heart to see her feel so proud. At last, an outlet for all her upside-down proclivities and restless energy!

And Nathan can pull up! He pulled up all the way to standing when we weren't watching him last evening. Again, that look of pride. It is becoming more apparent by the day that he is Daddy's boy--first there was the head, of course, and now there is his magnetic attraction to the TV and its accompanying devices. That's always where he wants to be standing. He's also working hard on growing a second tooth and on getting up on hands-and-knees. He can get up quite well now, but whenever he tries to move forward in that position, his tummy comes crashing back to the floor. But he's persistent and will have it soon!

In other news, Rachel peed all over the floor today. Then she walked into the bathroom, of her own accord, and pooped in the toilet! Small steps, but good ones!

Here's a snap of our family trip to the Bean last week--apparently they keep an absolutely gorgeous baby inside it!

Heads up!

When you have so little hair that you need to use sunscreen all over your head, it doubles as "product." Check out Nathan's classy do!


And Rachel garnered some positive attention from various parade-goers (even from some folks who were on floats!) for her ultra-snazzy Independence Day hat. Guess which flag she colored by herself!

Holy photos, Batman!

At long, long, long last, there are new photos at our shutterfly site. (Link at right.) We're still way behind, and the kids don't look like that any more, but still, they're fun, right? Enjoy! (A few are missing that I'd like to include--sorry to anyone who feels left out. I'll add them in when I find them in an electronic file somewhere!)

More photos

More time! Sick children sleep a lot! (I am sorry they're sick, of course, but the sleeping...ahhh!)

Nathan's new rolling prowess has gotten him into some interesting fixes. Here he is, all wrapped up in the blanket I had spread out for him to lie on.

And here is a peek inside--he loved it in there!

Nathan's rolling prowess really isn't that new any more--he's moved on to scooting around (mostly backwards for now) on his tummy. It makes for all sorts of new fixes, like getting himself horseshoed around a table leg and wondering why he can't scoot backwards any farther! He's also taken up a whole new hobby--eating food. He loves it!

And Rachel loves to help him eat food:

She has also recently discovered dress-up, thanks to some super-cool dress-up clothes she inherited from friends. Here's the latest installment of the Libby-and-Rachel Variety Show:

Photos at last

Strange confluence of events--I've figured out how to get photos on this new computer, and I have time to post a few!

Here's Rachel going to school. Any backpack will do, even the diaper bag that is nearly as big as she is!

Here's further evidence of Nathan's deep, abiding adoration of his big sister.
Here you can see Rachel on her new trike, and you can sort of see her new hairdo (This is post-nap, but it usually looks about that crazy. She has her mother's hair!)
Nathan has been working on growing some fancy hair of his own. It still doesn't really show up in photos (It's kind of vampirish that way.), so he asked me to post this photo of his pink toupee in the meantime. (It's Rachel's winter hat, but doesn't it flatter him?)