Thankful Turkeys

This was our family home evening on Monday. We talked about--what else?--being thankful. Then we wrote things we were thankful for on our turkey feathers. Nathan's included such gems as:

• feathers
• eggs
• ambulances

Not that we have experience from which we should be thankful for ambulances, but they are just really cool. Can you tell which turkey is his?

Clara did not get to make one. But I'm pretty sure what she's thankful for is this: at one week shy of eleven months, she has learned to crawl. So now she can be more up in her brother's business than ever. Nathan told me yesterday that "Clara wants to be over there," pointing across the room.

Here's another random story that made me laugh. Yesterday as we were getting in the car, Nathan came up behind me as I buckled Clara, and so when I moved he got bumped and fell over. And as he started to cry, I picked him up and asked him where he was hurt. He whimpered, "I hurt my body!" I don't think I gave him the sympathy he was looking for.

My kids, earning their keep

My kids. Goodness gracious. We plod through day after day, getting chores done and managing tantrums. And then, all of a sudden, they develop new and charming behaviors that make it all better.

Clara is about a half-inch away from crawling. She used to push up from her tummy into a perfect little plank position, like the top of a pushup. I think it's just that she's been watching me do yoga lately with a couple friends, and is picking up some moves. We've tried and tried to get a picture of her doing this, but she won't cooperate. Now she's progressed into pushing up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth. And yesterday she learned to sit up from laying down. So she's getting good at wiggling around and might actually move forwards one of these days.

What else is new? Check out those two front teeth in the photo above. Those cost us some sleep. Her gums look swollen again, like her incisors might come in soon. Wouldn't that look lovely? Two front teeth, two empty spots on either side, and two eye-teeth to make it symmetrical. What a lovely gap-toothed baby she will make. The hair on the back of her head is finally coming in and is forming lovely baby curls. And she's decided she hates baby food.

I had a talk with her and suggested she should hold off on wanting slices of apple until she gets a few more teeth, but she won't listen. Stubborn baby.

She acts pretty insulted when we expect her to eat baby food. But hey, there's at least one baby-related expense I can skip out on. By the way, anybody interested in potty-training a two-year-old?

Speaking of a two-year-old, lately he has:

Learned his dad's name and used it to ask where dad had gone.
Begun protesting when we say it's naptime. "No. Sun is up!" 
Taken to calling me momma dude.
Begun telling me "yes, sir."


I'll take any signs of respect I can get, even if they are gender-misinformed. He likes to talk about mom is a girl, dad is a boy... although I think he feels left out when dad is at work, and tries to claim that Nathan is a girl just like mom and Clara.

And he may have tried to use his cereal bowl as a hat yesterday, but he asks to wash his hands after every meal. Some progress. I'll take it.

Our life, videographered

Um, Halloween?

 Whew. Sorry it's taken so long. It's been bugging me, so here are Halloween pictures, at long last. This year I was super crafty (for me) and made the kids' costumes. You can see I spent hours and days laboring over them. I am pleased with how the hat turned out, though. My 20-year-old cousin liked it so much she was going to make one for her Halloween costume. How did that work out, Paige?

 Here's Clara giving a thoughtful founder-of-the-Red-Cross pose.

 Is that a turtle face? It must be.

 Nathan chose to dress as a turtle. But once I got it made, he hated it. He wouldn't let us put it on him. It took a lot of coaxing from cousins, aunts, and uncles to get him to put it on, and he only wore it for a few minutes. By the time he'd worn it several times, though, he loved it. He found it last week and wanted to wear his "turtle tummy."

Do you think Clara would like to be a turtle next year? That would make things easy.

Octember

 This is a happy baby. She likes to pick up her bottles and chew on them. She hasn't yet figured out that you  need to tip it up to get the milky goodness. Did I ever tell you how she didn't like baby food at first? It was some work to get her to think it was okay. She was like, "Thanks for this weird mush that tastes weird, but I'm really more of a powdered milk kind of gal." Then for a while she loved baby food. But I think she's realized she's the only one in the house who eats it, and she feels she's getting a bum deal. So she'd really rather have big people food. Too bad she only just got her fourth tooth. You've got a long way to go, baby.

 October 10, 2010: The day Nathan first fell asleep at dinner. This was two Sundays ago, the day after Emily's baptism, the day he did not get a nap since we were gone all day. And you know what a toddler automatically does the day after he does not get a nap? That's right. He gets up early. We have 1:00 church, so we tried our darndest to get a morning nap in there somewhere. Nope. Instead we had locked doors and crying all morning. He was pretty good at church, but then fell asleep at 5:45 at dinner. He then slept thirteen glorious hours and...refused to take a nap the next day. I finally won by pulling Clara's crib over in front of the door so he was truly stuck. I wouldn't have bothered but I knew we'd have another late night, having an empanada night with cousins since my brother-in-law and his family were in town. We fought all last week about naps, but this week has been better. Although I still do have to lock the door to get him to stay in his room. He's only occasionally lucky enough to rattle the lock open. I don't know how he does it.

Pictures from the hike we took Monday. I don't know why, but I forget that it's not impossible to go hiking with two kids. We don't go very often, but we all love it. Fall is at its prime up the canyon. We'll have to try to get more hiking in before it snows.

Union Station

 We like our family. And we like trains. So, we decided to take pictures of both at once.

 My sister-in-law's friend is a photographer. And so...

They turned out exquisitely.

Somebody's teething...

Can you guess who?

This is how I found Clara one morning as we dragged ourselves through puffy-eyed, runny-nosed, cranky days. Nathan saw me taking a picture, and asked "Picture, mommy?"

I said okay, and before I was done taking Clara's picture he had climbed up into her bed and was posing for his copy-cat shot. Toddler sees baby get attention for doing something cute, toddler does the same cute thing to get attention.

(These pictures are at least two weeks old. Clara's bottom two teeth are coming in nicely and get more visible every day.)

As I was taking some pictures of Clara's quite impressive post-ponytail look, he came and plopped himself down.

Same thing for the cute laundrybasket routine. Not that I did this "to be cute," but it's a good way to carry a baby and a load of laundry at the same time. She didn't love it. But Nathan did.

He still climbs into the excersaucer sometimes to play, but this was a first. As I got out of the shower one day I heard a very soft "mommy..." Since it wasn't an urgent death cry I continued getting ready. The cries got louder and louder.

Is he...? Yes. As I was taking a shower he was walking around with scissors before buckling himself into a baby seat. I've really got to start taking faster showers.

Here he is "taking a nap" in his laundry hamper. He continually amuses me with the things he finds fun.

And one more of Clara. This post was going to be very short and to the point. Instead this turned into a catchall post for August and September. But, with such cute kids, how could I keep these pictures to myself?