Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Catching up

Sunday we had the chance to visit with one of our dear old friends, Victoria. I babysat Victoria from the time she was 2 on up.  I vacationed with her family many times over the years.  Hard to believe time goes on and she's 17 now! She drove to our house, which was an odd feeling. :)
Ben got bored of napping on the couch and we found him like this.
Ready to see Victoria.
All grown up with our two!
Addie insisted on taking a picture of their feet.?. She's such a goof.

And a weird upload, but you get the point.  Addie wanted a "booty picture!" I spared Victoria from participating. 

Sunday, March 29, 2009

More of Ben's entertainment



Ways to entertain Ben

This boy has some serious scare reflexes which he loves to use. This could happen hour after hour after hour and he would never tire of it.




Thursday, March 26, 2009

Cutie Ben



Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Amanda sent another awesome package yesterday. Here's Ben enjoying some of his loot. The messy face is from some of the 100s of M&Ms he ate...LOL
LouLou and Bub, all of the dinosaurs went right into cups of water.  Now we have 6 neon colored dinosaurs drying off!

Future American Idol

Addie thinks she lives in a musical these days.  We have a lot of singing going on.  This is an original creation.  Notice the heartfelt emotion and gestures- you can't get more real than that.
She wakes up from naps after dreamt of being on American Idol.

In other news, we're finishing up our first full week of Muddy day care.  So far, all three are still alive and loving each other. That makes me happy.  It's so nice each morning to have them wake up , ask where they're going, have them hear "Muddy is coming over" and have the reaction be "Yay!" Talk about refreshing.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Lots going on

We've been super busy in general the past week. Addie and Ben had a fantastic time with Onkteb each day. Saturday we hosted a baby shower for one of my dear friends, with close to 50 people in our house at one time. That was a lot! Brian took the kids to the St. Patrick's Day parade, which they enjoyed tremendously.

The past two days Addie and Ben were in the back up childcare center, for their last days. This morning Muddy arrived at 8:00am to begin watching them during the day. After doing the initial hugs and kisses (Muddy has been gone for 3 weeks!), they immediately wanted to know where Guppy was (and Aunt Linda too, since she came back with them from California for some additional R&R post-spine surgery).

On a funny note, while driving to daycare on Monday we were discussing St. Patrick's Day and what it meant to be Irish. I explained that people with red hair are Irish and we went through who we know who has red hair (Ben, Muddy, Aunt Erin...). Addie started naming things that were red, and how they are Irish too (stop signs, stop lights, a wagon...). Out of the blue, Addie says, "Mommy, Onkteb is Irish! He's got black hair, but he's got red hands!" and she was very proud of herself. I had to laugh out loud, because Onkteb (who gave me permission to post this) has OCD and it manifests with excessive handwashing. So his hands are red, dry, and chapped from the soap, water and alcohol wipes!! She is 100% right though, Onkteb is Irish and he does have red hands!! :-)


Here's a FANTASTIC picture of Addie and me from the baby shower. There aren't many pictures of the two of us, so I really cherish this one. Thanks Ilka for taking it (and for getting pregnant!)

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Two stories of perception

Ok, first off, two blog posts in two days! Go me! :-)
I am loving the developmental stages my children are at. Besides being hysterically funny and creative, they're understanding of the world is so fun(ny) to watch develop. Here are two stories describing what I mean.
Yesterday Onkteb (who Addie and Ben have decided to nickname 'Tebby' for some reason now) took them to the DE Natural History Museum. When I got home from work I did my usual "what did you guys do today?" questioning. When I heard they went to the NHM, I said to Ben, "Did you see any dinosaurs?" He said, "no." I looked at TJ, who gave me the 'yes we did' look. So I asked again, "Did you see any dinosaurs?" Again, Ben said "no." TJ chimed in with "Ben, didn't we see the big dinosaur skeleton?" Ben looked unsure, so I rephrased it and asked, "Did you see big dinosaur bones?" Benjamin seemed shocked and said, "No, dinosaurs don't have bones. Bones are for doggies" and he proceeded to show me Biscuit the dog (the robot/lifelike dog Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Amanda gave them for Christmas) had a bone. Apparently Ben's definition of bone is only as in a milkbone dog treat. CUTE!
This one is a little long, but it's worth it: Just about every Sunday on our way to visit the grandparents we stop by Dunkin Donuts to get coffee and munchkins. It's our ritual. Addie usually goes in with Brian and the people who work there know her now. Well a couple weeks ago Brian went in by himself while I sat in the car with Addie and Ben. When he returned with our goodies, he also had this box set of Lord of the Rings collector's cards. I gave him the why-the-hell-would-you-spend-money-on-these? look. He explained the man behind the counter said, "These are for your daughter." So I opened the box up and distributed 8x10 pictures of the characters to Addie and Ben each. They were enthralled with each one, studying the costumes and all the details. Addie of course wanted to know a lot about each person. When it came to one of the characters (forgive me, Onkteb, for not knowing them) who had a bow and arrow, Addie asked what he was holding. I explained a bow and arrow. She wanted to know what it was for. I told her that he uses it to "get animals." She wanted to know what he did with the animals when he got them. I told her "he eats them." She about threw up in her carseat! She exclaimed, "Ewww, we don't eat aminals." (Note she pronounces it aMiNals.) I can only imagine how she's going to respond as a teenager to the bloodshed of eating chicken, beef, pork, etc. Little does she know that the chicken from her beloved chicken lo mein is really chicken.
Just funny how they pick up so much from the world around them, yet still have so much to learn.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Busy life

Well last week Aunt Kim watched Addie and Ben two days, while they went to the backup childcare through Brian's work the other days. This week Onkteb is in town to watch them. Am I lucky or what? I am not sure how many other people can say their older brother would come down for a whole week of his spring break to watch their children. Thanks Onkteb.

We are becoming quite the video chatting clan. We've connected with Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Amanda on several occassions now. We've connected with Muddy and Guppy who are still out in California too. What cool technology. It's funny to watch Addie and Ben on it, because they believe that the person on the screen can "catch this" if an object is thrown at them. Last night we had to tell Addie numerous times that she couldn't throw the matchbox car to Uncle Jeremy.

We bought the ABBA greatest hits cd over the weekend, which has thrilled Addie and Ben beyond belief. They, like their mommy, love disco music.

We had a playdate with Ben's best friend from KinderCare at a local park on Saturday. It was 70 degrees out and we were there for 2 hours. On Sunday we took a wagon walk to the zoo. Then we came home and drove the Jeep around the yard and streets. Addie is much better at driving this year, albeit a little resistant to my jumping in to steer her from hitting a car, but oh well.

Here's some pictures.
At the zoo
Addie is quite the artist these days. That's her signed name as well...pretty good, eh?
From Kim's cell phone: Benjamin insisted on wearing "his shoes."

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Rocker chick

Remember Addie's obsession with "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne?  Well apparently she was perfecting her rocker chick in-your-face moves.  Watch and learn.  Several times a day we get this performance now.  Can you feel her angst? How dare he wrong her!
Oh and yes, sometimes Benjamin does wear pants. :)

Monday, March 2, 2009