What She's Up To

Clearly, I haven't caught up on vacation pictures yet.  In the meantime, I thought I'd give you a little Grace update.  She seemed to change quite a bit during the trip.  She has switched from constantly using her fast, elbows-first, belly-on-the-ground, army crawl, to being up on her hands and knees quite a bit.  She is moving easily between crawling and sitting herself up.  (I know "the books" say this is a skill for when babies are several months old, but neither of my kids has done it until just before walking time.)  She can get on and off of her pink scooter/walking toy thing all by herself.  Another molar popped through on the trip (for a total of three) and she got her second top front tooth yesterday (for a total of four front teeth.)  She has added "cheese" and "cracker" to her repertoire of signs now.  She signs "bird" for every animal and says "woof woof" for every animal.  She's not using many words, but she is loud and lets us know exactly how she is feeling.  Loudly.  So, when she asks for cheese or crackers and I don't give them to her, she has another thing to be very loud about.  She has an appetite like nobody's business!

What I am most excited about is that Grace is interested in using a fork.  She has always liked eating from utensils better than using her hands, which has meant a bit more work for me in feeding her.  But now, she wants to hold the fork herself the get the food to her mouth.  She can't really poke bites herself yet, so she needs help with that, but I'm so happy that she wants to use a fork.  A certain other someone around here didn't want to use a fork and spoon to self-feed until after his second birthday, and I had to do a lot of coaxing to get that to happen.  So, it looks like her strong will has a positive side in this area...she wants to learn to do it herself.

I will try to share pictures soon.  We have a lot of great ones from a very fun trip.  (And yes, Grace did well, as did Jonathan.)  Today, though...getting groceries.

Her Way

On Sunday morning, Grace asked me to put a hat on her. (It's amazing how clearly she can communicate that request without words.) She was pretty bent out of shape when I wouldn't dress her in a hat. So, later, she found one and put it on herself.

The I Love You Book

Jonathan found a binder ring and some paper in early June and decided to write a book for "as a gift" for me:




Yes, you read that right!  We are expecting a baby, due Christmas Day.  I'll share some personal reflection on this later on, but for now, let me say that we are grateful and humbled that we get the chance to be parents again.  What a huge and undeserved blessing.

Back

You may not have known, but we've been gone for a week!  Our family went on a road trip to some volcanic destinations, and we had a great time!  I scheduled some blog posts while we were gone so that the grandmas would not miss the grandkiddos too much!  We took around 380 pictures while we were on our trip, so I'll work on sorting through the best ones to share.

I have 477 blog posts in my Google Reader, so I'll also work on deleting all the "frugal blog" posts and reading the real posts from our bloggy friends...as well as reading emails.  We didn't have Internet access or cell coverage for a big chunk of our vacation, which was a great reprieve!  I do miss knowing what's going on with friends, and family, though.  I have just started catching up and got some great news...Tim and Jo got their referral!  We are super excited about their baby girl in Ethiopia.  I have seen her picture, and she is precious.  Congratulations to Tim, Jo, Graham, and Wesley!

Apparently...

Dish towels make for great dress-up props.




Two of her favorite things:  driving her pink car around the house, which she has enjoyed for quite awhile, and finding anything made of cloth (like towels and laundry) and wearing it.  Jeff says, "I wonder if she's going to like dressing up when she's older?"  I'm sure Ella and Delia could help out!

Lego Stuff

I haven't posted about Jonathan's Legos in awhile.  Not to worry.  He's still a building machine.  Here are a few things I've caught on camera.  I've discovered that taking pictures is one way to make sure he'll be willing to take his creation apart.

Here's an umbrella.


This is an engine for the inside of a train.


This is a little country of forklifts building stuff.  You can see the two forked creations with their corresponding loads, and the windmill.


A voting place.  Yes, I took my kids to the polling place with me.  I talked to them about how special that it is to have the opportunity to vote, but I didn't know that Jonathan was taking in his surroundings.  See his version of the American flag?


Note the ballot sitting on the table.  The lines are the words on the ballot.


This one is my favorite.  It's a puzzle.  Apart...


And together.  Did I mention it was my favorite?

When Your Mom Has Humongous Feet

A Hug

Grace is starting to learn to hug.  Just like her big brother, she's not a real snuggler and hugs only on her own terms.  But when she does, she says "ahhhhh."  It's very sweet.

Making Music

She likes the high notes the best.

And here's Jonathan playing piano with Emma Claire. He just happens to be the same age as Grace in this picture. You can see how much taller he was! We miss you, EC!

Fifteen Months

Grace turned 15 months old yesterday, so we went to the doctor today to see how she's doing.  She weighed 24 lbs., 9 oz and was 30.5" long.  To see how Jonathan was doing at this age, and how much better I was at taking pictures and telling the story from his perspective, click here.  (He was awfully cute, wasn't he?)  Thankfully, Grace is a couple of inches shorter than he was, and a pound lighter.  I forgot to ask the doc for percentiles, but it looks-from what I can see online-like she is below average for height and above average for weight.  I think this is the first time either kiddo has been below average for height, ever, so I'm not sure the measurement is correct.  At any rate, the doctor thought she was doing fine, although she has a funny diaper rash that we need to keep an eye on.  We'll go in for another checkup at 18 months. He hopes she is walking by then, and so do I!

Vicki

If you have been following Vicki's story-she is my dear friend Cherissa's mom-you should check her post today, here.

Lego Party Stuff

We're not planning a party right now, but I stumbled upon some great links to Lego party ideas, and I had to share them and some others I remembered seeing a long time ago.. Maybe I'll come back to them someday, and if not, I hope you enjoy them. We have yet to throw a "friend" birthday party around here, but I know the day is in our future! Just don't mention it to Jonathan. His birthday is still almost six months away.

Here goes:

Tip Junkie's list of Lego Party ideas
Ultimate Lego Birthday Party (hat tip to Rocks in My Dryer)
Lego Birthday Cake (hat tip to Design Mom)

Teeth

So, I think we've established the fact that I'm a little clueless about teeth.  Either my kids don't make a big fuss about teeth coming in, or I don't notice it for what it is, or both.

You might know that Grace, at 14 mos., has just three teeth:  the two middle bottom ones and one on top.  We brush them, and her empty gums in back, pretty faithfully.

Apparently, Grace actually has five teeth.  I discovered two today, while she was taking a bath.  Her two other teeth are molars.  The one on the bottom left is mostly through, with all four pointy parts showing, and the one on the top right only has one pointy part poking through.  This is probably only interesting to the Grandmas, but I am still pretty surprised about it.

She is her own girl on her own schedule, and even her teeth are reminding us of that.  I hope that the other teeth in front that I expected before the molars are in there somewhere!

That's My Girl, and That's My Boy

That's my girl, sleeping sideways in her crib even though she's too big, and snuggling with her Baby Stella, which she is really starting to bond with.

That's my boy, sleeping in his beloved blanket-sleeper-footie pajamas that are too small, and hoping that I let him sleep in them one more time before I wash them.

In the Tub

I love this look on his face.

And this one on hers.

Somehow, these pictures ended up looking like bathtime was very serene, so I'll just tell you that it was not serene. I was too busy managing chaos during the other moments to take pictures of them, I guess.

All clean

Paper Dolls

This was such a fun walk down memory lane that I had to share it!

Here is a list of free printable paper dolls.  I remember loving paper dolls when I was little.  The best part of the list is the page of old vintage out-of-print paper doll scans that you can print.  I remember playing with a lot of these myself, including some from the Joan Walsh Anglund Children's Page, and the Ginghams.  Enjoy the fun!

Hat tip to Money Saving Mom!

More Sewing for Grace

Being the Oldest...

means making cupcakes after your little sister is in bed.

More Climbing

Our Gracie, who weighs more than 24 lbs. but is not yet walking, thinks it's great fun to climb through her car onto furniture. Here she is, thinking she's pretty hot stuff.

(I think my mom has mentioned that I was much older and heavier than this when I started walking, so I'm sure I'm being paid back for the trouble I caused my mom!)

And I thought this one was just cute. Love the pudgy baby physique!

The Knight

A few weeks ago, some neighbors of ours had a garage sale. We walked down the street to say "hello" and wish them well, and they gave Jonathan one of their items for sale: a really neat knight Halloween costume. Jonathan has gotten lots of mileage out of this costume already, and has made a paper sword and torch that he decided he needed to be a knight. (And you know he's not super crafty, so it was fun to see him get into this.)

We got to visit Ella and Delia yesterday, which Jen posted about. You should know that the girls loooove to play dress-up and set up pretend scenarios to act out. When it was time to play princesses, Jonathan was armed with his knight costume so that he would have a masculine option. (On a previous visit, he had been asked to be a groom, which is not very attractive to a five-year-old boy.)

This time, Ella wrote "lines" for each of the kids to say. I think the idea was that Jonathan was the "handsome prince" and the girls were the princesses. Jonathan was not very into the idea of being a prince or saying lines, but when Jen and I assured him that it was just pretend and he didn't really have to say the "lines," he perked up. He really just wanted to slap things with his paper sword. Riding the girls' stick horses was pretty exciting, too.

I think I may have to send Grace over to Jen's house for some lessons in girly play, because at our house, she mostly plays with balls, cars, and books these days!

We all had a great visit with Jen and the girls...and the kids kept us very entertained!

More Climbing

Probably time to move this toy, too!

Jonathan's Silly Sentences