A Zoo of a Birthday

While I have yet to get and/or post photos of Michaela's birthday party, we did get some photos shared with us from our friend Sarah of Michaela's birthday trip to the zoo. 

Lily likes to hold hands. Michaela was humoring her.

Farm girls

Admiring the ugliest animal at the zoo - the warthog

Josiah taunting Lily with his cell phone

The girls have switched baby dolls by this point in the day

Who you didn't even see in these photos is Sarah, or her baby boy Nathan. But they were there, and added lots of fun to Michaela's birthday excursion. Thanks friends!

Tough at Ten Months

Josiah is cruising through Year One of his life. At ten months, he is constantly on the go. 

Talking to his new friend, Kenji

 He's always into Michaela's business. How are her toys so much better than his? Or how are my cupboards so much more interesting than his drawer? Sometimes it's just friendly play (which she still resists adamantly) or other times it's as if he's practicing to be a little brother.

Trying to help Michaela color.
Note Michaela leaning as far away from him as she can get.

First time realizing he can see out the window.  "Hi Daddy! I'm in here!"

He's really not saying any words that I can identify, besides Mama. But he consistently makes a noise when he identifies a dog barking, or sees a dog. He also started waving on his 10 month-a-versary. He first waved at our friend Sarah, and then later at me. He's also doing a legitimate crawl now. He's so funny, because he loves to stand up on anything (he tried the garbage can yesterday) but doesn't want to hold on to hands and stand. If you take his hands, he sits down. He doesn't want to try and walk, except pushing his little white chair around the kitchen - so I guess he does walk behind that. He also still tries to put everything in his mouth. In the past 24 hours I have rescued from his mouth- a cupcake sticker (from Michaela's dr. appt), a rose petal, a small toy, a piece of barkdust, and grass. Yum!

He can't go anywhere, but he loves to sit on it.

Three! Tres! Trois!

Michaela is THREE! According to child development books, this makes her not a toddler anymore, but a "preschooler"! Though she will be having a family birthday party this weekend, we did not let her go uncelebrated on the official day of her birth. We (kids and I) spent the morning at the zoo with our friends Sarah, Lily and Nathan. Unfortunately there are no pictures because I forgot my camera. Michaela loves to look at all the "aminals." She says her favorite animal at the zoo is the hippo. However, I'm skeptical about this because she spent most of the time yesterday talking about the tigers and polar bears. It must be the pressure of answering in the moment, because these are the answers she just gave me, which seem to not be correct to me. I will put what I think in parentheses.
Favorite color: Orange (blue/purple)
Favorite play activity: Games  - Candyland (baby dolls)
Favorite place to go: Mimi & Papa's (the park)
Favorite food: Chicken nuggets (ice cream, brownies, fruits of all kinds, cucumbers)

An 'on her birthday' present - a real soccer ball!

Michaela had her first dental appointment this week. She has 20 teeth, all in great shape with no cavities. She was a champ sitting in the dental chair and wearing the neat-o sunglasses they provided her. This was the first time we tried this dentist - close to our house - and they seemed really great. I think the hardest part for her was having to choose a prize from three full drawers of options.

We just got back from the doctor for her 3-year checkup and she was pronounced in great health. She has just bested 30 pounds and is 38 inches tall. This puts her in the 50% for weight and the 74% for height. Maybe Josiah won't outgrow her so soon after all.

It's hard to summarize her year in just one post, so I won't even try. Some recent accomplishments are that she can pedal and steer her tricycle up and down our street (with a parent right on her tail). She is like a new driver, however, who can't look one way without also steering that way, which is very dangerous for all concerned (say if you have, perhaps, a mother walking next to her pushing a baby in a stroller...). She still loves reading. We try to go to the library every week to get a few new ones. But she also regularly requests that we read the kids' Bible we purchased for her. She loves to talk, talk, talk, all the time. On a recent drive I was trying to find a new place and needed to focus. I asked her to stop talking, please. She said, "But I love to talk!" So we agreed that she could talk but I would not listen or respond until we reached our destination. She asks, all the time, 3 different questions: "How are you doing?," "What are you doing?," and "Why?" Recently she's been telling me, "I'm not talking to you, Mama, I'm talking to my babies."

Look at all the tiny pieces of hardware!

For her birthday, Adam and I purchased a play structure and Adam put it up in the backyard. The pictures that follow demonstrate all the man hours he put into it. She loves it, and says it's "like a park!" It is. Puckett Park.

I didn't get my counter top back for a week

Hmmm... glad for directions

Michaela initially thought the play set was going to be like this, and was worried she would bonk her head.

So glad to finally be up in the fort!

After the zoo and a short nap, Michaela got to go out to birthday ice cream with her Daddy. If this isn't a happy face, I don't know what is! Then Adam brought her home and left me with a child on a sugar high for the afternoon.

Happy Birthday to our amazing daughter!

Navigating Nine Months

How to describe our little guy at nine months? Well, he is personable, smiley, kind of shy when mom's not around, short-tempered and loud in the middle of the night, too cool to sleep through the night (or maybe, as Adam suggests, he just misses me), and perhaps most notable... everywhere! He pulls himself up on nearly anything he can reach. He is particularly fond of my legs, and once or twice Michaela's art easel has thrown him for a loop when it refused to tolerate his climbing by falling over. He still has just two teeth, but seems to gnaw anything in sight, as well, so perhaps sometime soon we'll be seeing more chompers (I feel as if I've been saying that for a while).

At Grammy and Papi's the morning of his 9-month-aversary

He loves his big sister and tries to be involved with whatever she is doing. This has become less amusing to Michaela lately, and we have to keep putting her books and toys with little pieces at ever-increasing heights to keep them out of harm's way.

He's started clapping all the time, usually when he's happy or excited. It was fun to see him clapping during worship time while the rest of us were singing (and not clapping).

Blueberry picking. He supervised from the stroller.

He takes two naps a day and is now supposed to be eating three solid meals per day. He loves food and eating and my challenge is getting enough to keep up with him. He's doing some finger foods and watermelon seems to be a big favorite right now.

Josiah likes wrestling on the floor with Adam and Michaela, is pretty interested in water and the little wading pool, and thoroughly loves bath time. He's outgrown his baby bathtub and sits in the big tub all by himself. I don't have enough hands to bathe both at the same time and also referee the wildness of big sister toppling over little brother. He is almost steady enough to combine the two, and I look forward to cutting down bathtime by half!

And I couldn't leave out Michaela when I put a picture of Josiah blueberry picking. To be fair in my reporting, Michaela did pick 0.6 pounds all by herself - she really did a great job!

Michaela blueberry "picking" - I kept hearing her repeat, "Mmmm, I like blueberries."

oy vey

The Spanish major in me is proud to hear my daughter walking around reading Buenas Noches Luna (Goodnight Moon, in Spanish). That parental pride is overshadowed, however, by my chagrin over her saying, jibberish jibberish jibberish "moon-o." And then her informing me that Spanish is a little hard to say.

Life...Trickier

Life in our household just got more entertaining and busy. Check out Josiah who can now pull himself up on things and look for fun toys Michaela may have left behind that he can put in his mouth. These new moves also led to Adam and I having a discussion about lowering Josiah's crib, pronto.

Shed Season

My husband is a researcher. He comes up with an idea, then he thinks, and plans, and researches. He makes a draft and then he checks it out and drafts it again... until, at last, perfection is reached. At least that is the general idea, but one never knows for sure with home improvement projects. However, I proudly present the "shed project." Adam's goal was to build a shed to house big tools and other garage miscellany so that the garage, in turn, could house two cars, camping supplies, three strollers and a tricycle. More or less. Unfortunately it seems to usually be more. Here is the shed project, in pictures. A special shout-out goes out to our friend Doug for his invaluable assistance for the huge majority of one precious Saturday. And another mini shout-out to shed helper Michaela.

Step #1 - preparing the floor

Enter Kenji, construction dog

Deck completed!

Step #2 - Framing

All smiles (it's still early)

Hard at work

Look - there's a side wall!

Teamwork

All closed in - Michaela points to the shed interior

Adam's next calling might be as a roofer

Construction helper - she handed Adam roof pieces

All done! And as near to perfection as we could hope. 

Great job, everyone!!!

Eight Months! Can it be?!

Time for the ol' status report on Josiah at eight months. The more of life goes by, the more I notice it's difficult for me to retain even important details about life. Hence, blogging here about possibly mundane (to you) details. Though he's not officially crawling yet, Josiah is essentially completely mobile. He army crawls everywhere he wants to be and pulls himself up so he can reach the really exciting things (crayons, paper, playdough, leftover snacks...) on the top of Michaela's little white table. He can sit up on his own and enjoys using both hands to explore. He loves electrical cords, the vacuum cleaner, eating dirt off of my floor, and observing the cat and the dog. He thinks his big sister is amazing. Blowing raspberries on his belly sends him into giggles galore. He's fully jumping out of the bouncy chair where I used to strap him so I could shower, so now I can only shower while he's asleep. I tried yesterday to just let him crawl on the bathroom floor with his toys, but that's really not going to work since he can open the shower door, eats the dog bed, and it took him about 60 seconds to discover the garbage can, knock it over, chew on the plastic liner, and begin to explore its contents (before I could see how far he was getting, turn off the water, wrap a towel and jump across the bathroom). He's motivated. And learning the meaning of "no-no."

He's eating like a champ, probably weighs about 19 pounds and is on the verge between 9 month and 12 month clothing. He practices feeding himself with "puffs" which are baby finger food that essentially melt in his mouth. He gagged himself on toasty o's last week, but this week when I break them in half he is doing great with them. He's also doing soft pieces of fruit and avocado with his two teeth. I feel like more teeth are imminent. So far he hasn't met a food he doesn't like.

Sleep... sweet sleep. A couple of times he's slept from 7-6 which was wonderful. Two nights later he was waking up every 4 hours. Last night it was just one awakening in the middle of the night. He's so unpredictable! We've tried to let him cry it out a couple of nights, but his capacity for screeching long, loud, and stubbornly (say 1.5 hours?) is daunting. We're backing off on that as it really is easier on me to just get up, feed him, and put him back to bed than to listen to him cry. We'll see how he does and try it again later. Maybe - wishful thinking - he'll just do it on his own!

We love our little guy!

Young and In Love

Eight years ago today Adam and I celebrated the end of our engagement and the beginning of our marriage and life together. In fact, right now eight years ago, some of you had probably already sneaked ahead in line and were enjoying the snacks. I don't really remember if I ate any or not. In some ways it doesn't feel like that long ago, and in other ways (say... we have two children now... and a mortgage!) it seems like we've done quite a bit of journeying together. I love this man and I am so thankful that the Lord put him in my life. Adam, you're a wonderful husband, fantastic father, and I hope we have many more anniversaries to celebrate together.

Making it official!

Greatness

We are soooo thankful for wonderful great-grandparents who set an excellent example of commitment and caring for us and for our children. Plus, all three of them are just really cute.