Thank You!

Our parents have helped a lot (in person and from afar) in outfitting our home, and especially the kids' rooms. Here are our most recent additions, wall letters.

And here are the girls' big girl beds. We're working on actually SLEEPING in them, but they look nice for now, anyway. (and yes, Alden crashed the shelves and is eating a disabled smoke alarm - we've since put it back up).

And little Jamie's room. It's kind of hard to see since the picture's a little dark, but we painted it a light light blue. We are still loving our house and enjoying decorating it - a work in progress, of course, but we're getting closer.

Too Much

Too many cute things happened today, and I couldn't handle not remembering them. I think I already forgot most of them, though. I remember the most memorable (apart from Alden getting both of his 2 front teeth on his 8 month birthday!): Anna telling me the AT&T person I talked to on the phone was named "Turnip," then walking around saying "that's a pretty cute name." I've never said a thing about turnips, so I think she overheard it from afar at story time last week (we sat in a corner and read books ourselves since there were too many kids). There was also the game in which Anna and Kara went in different rooms only so they could call "Anna!" and "Kara!" to each other, then look for each other so they could reunite with big hugs.

We also have too much hair these days, finally enough for pig tails (we achieved tiny pony tails in November or so). Heaven forbid you put something in their hair, though - it's taken out immediately and you are chastized thoroughly, by Kara especially. She prefers her hair "crazy."

Clearly we no longer have models. These pictures took a lot of tries to achieve, and you can see how lovely they are.

A couple more notes about A and K. Kara is getting a little less bossy, which is a good thing. She is very nice to Anna and takes care of her when she's hurt or upset. She is not, however, nice to Alden most of the time. Anna is the sweetest to Alden, but not very nice to Kara, and cries about everything (including when Kara takes toys from Alden). They both finally call him AlDen too...not AlGen. We sing "Friends for Dinner" from one of the Land Before Time movies, "I Know You" from Sleeping Beauty, and "Portobello Road" from Bedknobs and Broomsticks almost constantly.

Kara: Is really good at asking complex questions and fully speaks like an adult, well, for the most part. She's started waking up at night or during her nap when she has to pee, which is a good thing.

Anna: Tells everyone "my name is Anna" when she sees them; guess she's been asked enough. Really wants to wear only underwear, but doesn't wake up when she has to go, so has taken to wearing underwear on top of her diapers when she sleeps.

Finally

After over a month of trying, little James can finally crawl! Thursday I felt it time to officially declare that he could pull up to stand (on his feet now), and while I saw his first real crawling steps that day as well, it wasn't until Friday that he made repeated efforts. He still only goes as far as the toy he wants, but that's just fine with me.

Please note, his crawling style is on all 4s. The girls had a 2 hands, 1 knee, 1 foot approach.

Maybe at Our New House

We've had a lot of activity in the past month and a half since I've posted. We found out that we were going to close on our house pretty quickly and had to rush to get that done by December 23rd, then left the next day for Arkansas for Christmas, then moved Dec 28th, the day after we came home. We've painted and had house guests two weekends of the 3 we've been here, Andrew went out of town for a couple days, and we finally cleared out our old place. Oh yeah, and we were without internet until this afternoon - almost 4 weeks - yikes. I guess there was one bad thing about buying a house that's only 5 years old.

I have tons of pictures and stories, but to briefly update (sans pictures, since the camera cord is misplaced/not unpacked), Anna and Kara are bundles of dinosaur/princess loving energy and talk the entire day in ridiculously adult sentences and questions, and Alden LOVES to eat food (no surprise there, the guy is jumbo), which he started a couple weeks ago at 6 months. Kara and Anna and Alden and I had a birthday celebration for them (2 1/2) at "the restaurant with Wendy on it" and they got their "own burgers," Kara's with lettuce because she "LOOOOOVES lettuce so much." Alden's been pulling up to stand since a little before 6 months, but can only get up to his knees, and same with crawling - he's been really close for 3 weeks now, but his upper body is disproportionately small for his body so he can't actually move. He has one tooth that he got last week. He spends his entire days trying to stand up and trying to eat paper - his 2 favorite things.

We're mostly settled, so maybe I'll be able to get back into blogging - before we moved our common reply to many things was "well, maybe at our new house," and the girls got on board too, especially about lost toys, which we would maybe find "when we moved to our new house." So, we're sticking with that - maybe at our new house. :)

Naked Babes at 4 1/2 Months

While a comparison may not be fair, since there's only one of him, I wanted to see anyway. 4 nakey Aldens and 1 set of nakey girls.

There's no perspective, but he weighs what they did when they were about 12 months, and I feel like he's as long as they were then too, though maybe a bit shorter (he's definitely rollier). I also don't really think he looks like them, but then again, I think that Anna and Kara don't look all too much alike either.

Happy Birthday Jamie James

I have a penchant for giving my children strange nicknames and then calling them exclusively by those names. Alden is currently referred to as "Jamie," "Jamie James," or "Mr. James." I have to remind myself to call him Alden so that he'll actually learn his name.

He's now 5 months and has acquired a lot of new skills in the last month. Just after I told a lot of people he couldn't roll front to back, he started doing it, preferring that to tummy time. He started sitting all the time mid-month - I'm so excited - it's definitely my favorite baby stage. And the last couple weeks he's been talking a lot more, adding bla bla, other consonant sounds, and most importantly, dada and mama - he only says mama when he's crying, so we'll pretend he knows what it means. :)

Pictures from the last 2 weeks or so.

Toes are a big favorite of his, since sisters can't take them away...

Smiling at sissies always comes first. (This is how I trained him to sit for longer periods of time - hanging a toy off the edge of a crib).

And the new talent of the day...

He finds it very impressive.

By the way, every time I see him I can't help but say either "he's the nicest" or "he's the cutest." He just is.

Happy Thanksgiving

I loved all of these silly pictures...perhaps just because the girls actually wore bows for the majority of the afternoon? We celebrated with the Brooks family, as we did last year - thanks guys! Oh, and poor Alden was asleep during photos, so we missed capturing his first Thanksgiving. Sorry, bud. You were the best and sweetest, as always. Thankful for silly girls, a sweetie boy, and the best husband.

A little bigger than the last foot-to-foot pic we have of them, just after we brought them home...they've nearly doubled their birth lengths.

Here are the incoherently yelled greetings...separately, then together, to add to their unintelligibleness. :)

Lots

I've been taking a vacation from my "job" of blogging - I just haven't felt like it, and really nothing extraordinary is going on. We're having fun, mostly hanging out. But I do feel it's my duty to share our lives with family and friends, so here's my attempt to catch up a bit. This fall nearly every Saturday has been warm, sunny, and gorgeous. So lots of...

(These are from Oct. 24th; note we still had our wagon).

And just a little less of this...given the choice of anywhere to go, the girls always choose the playground. And we always sing the 90s ABC "Playground" song because it gets stuck in my head. Ha.

These 2 are actually from apple picking in early Oct. in Cleveland.

And Alden's first time swinging, Oct. 17th. None too impressed. We do always take him out when he'd rather be sleeping, in his defense.

Fun With Mom

Lately

Sorry for the lack of posting for so long; it was not by design - I have a list of things I've been meaning to post about.

Meanwhile...lots of naked babies in a crib...that's a favorite game. At least the girls didn't strip everyone TOTALLY naked this time. I do have some pictures of that from a couple months ago, but they're censored. :)

These are from when we had the flu about a month ago, but last week everyone was hit with colds (and Alden with reactions to his 4 month vaccines) on top of still lingering coughs. So, sick again.

Before we were felled by illness ("a little bit sick" according to K and A), we spent the weekend in Branson, MO (kind of a Bible-belt Vegas and outlet mall destination) and Harrison, AR and visited with Andrew's family. After some hotel snuggling and swimming the next morning, Alden and I shopped with the girls and Andrew took our girls to play at his grandparents' with the guys.

Pretending to sleep...Anna was laughing too much to be good at it...and a blurry everyone "sleeping" while we waited to meet up with family before bed.

Not as many purposeful near-drowning incidents as the last time in the pool, and fun playing.

The next morning we hung out a little bit then headed home, but not before visiting (a very sad) outdoor safari place in the middle of nowhere MO. We didn't go in, or take the complimentary bus tour, but we did talk to some goats and find a baby turtle.

And Kara took a liking to these turkeys from Nana, which were perfect for car nap-time snuggling. I guess the fun weekend was worth the resulting illness. Though I really wish I were done hearing "Anna has snot" and "Kara has snot."

New Skills

I haven't posted about potty training since May. This is because we quit trying to potty train and were content with partially potty trained girls with no underwear at home and going out in diapers. I wasn't going to push it with Alden and those changes. We've progressed and they can now wear underwear and do when we go out (unless it's long car trips or the playground - they'll never choose the potty over swinging). Still diapers at nap and night. Kara has refused to poop in the potty for, oh, almost 7 months - since the first time she did it. She told me she would when she turned 2 - false. It was a big effort to even get her to "try" on the potty first. She did once; it was amazing. I told her if she pooped on the potty 5 times she could get a fish. We decided on a name for her fish. Anna got a fish in 5 days. Kara was content to look at Anna's fish. Lollipops were also offered - Anna got lollipops. Anyway, she had some tummy issues last week and I pushed for the potty. There were a lot of tears, but after she got over her initial fear and received a lollipop for a job well done (I literally cried I was so happy), she warmed up to the idea a little bit (that was a week ago). She is now the proud owner of Dory-Emo (she wanted to name him "Dory and Emo" (Nemo)). Unfortunately he's dead on the counter right now, along with Anna's aged Buzzah - not sure what went wrong with the transfer to the bowl.

Oh yeah, and she gets to call dad and tell him when she poops on the potty, and there is the "hooray dance." Never underestimate the power of a hooray dance...

Alden, long overdue for his own post, which is coming soon I hope - there are SO many pictures of his last 2 months of life I haven't posted, has developed his own new skills over the last week (in addition to the ones he's been working on I haven't posted about).

The first is spitting. All over. On everything. All the time (except when I try to film it, of course).

The second is a bigger deal - sitting. Alden tries to sit up all the time when we lay him partially reclining, and has started to be able to sit a few minutes by himself, as long as he doesn't go for his toes. This isn't the best representation, but his favorite things to look at - his sisters - were asleep, so he wasn't as motivated. :) The girls started sitting without falling over around 4 1/2 months, and he seems to be on that same track.

I'm proud of my big girls and big boy.

Happy Halloween

After a Halloween party at a friend's yesterday and emergency Pooh washing (Kara fell into a huge mud puddle), we were ready to get back into costumes for trick-or-treating. They actually told me they'd rather stay home (just like mama!), until Andrew told them they got to wear their costumes if we went. They switched from this post, in case you're confused as to who's who.

Awe-struck was the look of the evening. When asked to tell people "trick or treat" or "happy Halloween," the response was usually "not right now" or "maybe later when we get back to our house."

Alden-monkey napped, then graduated to the umbrella stroller, where he fought to keep his hat from covering his eyes.

Snack and loot, post trick-or-treating. Pretty happy about their lollipops, but chips and gummy spiders were their favorites, and that glow stick we found.

After several attempts to get a decent video of them saying "happy Halloween" Kara told me she was going to take a movie of nothing and Anna's mouth...my ever-cooperative sweeties. :)