January 2013 - Unoriginal Title, oh well.

There is ice coating the deck and the roads today so we are holed up inside. You can walk around the house and there is destruction in EVERY single room. At least Mara destructor is entertained. And entertaining. She is RARELY quiet. She talks, chants, babbles, sings, and comments to herself CONSTANTLY. And her sense of style is completely unique. As I'm huddled in the computer chair in multiple layers, she has on a long sleeve motorcycle shirt, pearl necklace, and a pull-up whose bottom is so worn out it's coming apart... just from today's use. 

 While I was putting away my older digital camera, she wanted to give it a shot. Hah.

 Arson was a willing subject.

 Gotta get this just right.

 My future assistant.

----

Little man Isaac is 8 months old.

 

 He's got a great smile, awesome giggles when I tickle him, and he now sits and bounces up and down and up and down.

 

 How's this for two happy kids???

 

 He loves touching faces, is in a serious Mom phase, and is doing great with stage 1 baby foods mixed with rice cereal or oatmeal cereal and some breast milk. He's finally opening his mouth for the food and swallowing. His first favorite food was carrots, but now he's doing well with sweet potatoes, pears, apples, and peaches.

 He can push up to great heights, but still reverts to his "superman" pose (see below). He kicks and flails and is a sight to see.

 Whatever, Mom. I know I'm good looking.

 We've noticed his hair is growing in longer on top, like a mohawk.

 Occasionally, Mara will let me take her picture. She's hard to run down, she's always so busy and definitely has an opinion on whether or not I get to take pictures of her. She sat herself here, so I snapped a few shots, not knowing how many I was going to get.

 I can't get her to stop her "cheese" face...

 But I was able to move Isaac forward out of her shadow.

 We have good hair days (pig tails, or "pink tails" or "piggy tails") and bad hair days (every other day). She loves playing her little MobyGo computer with all the games she got for birthday/Christmas. She even gave a PlayStation game a shot, but we couldn't find a good beginner one so she gave up. This last week she has taken a great liking to Mickey and Minnie Mouse and watches them on Hulu.

 Mara kisses and loves on Isaac all the time. He grins like a goofball. She talks to him "Hey little guy, hey there, hey there little man!" (Mimicking us, I guess!)

 

 I LOVE these faces she makes at him.

 

 My little loves.

 

 Isaac will shimmy and shake his body and his head (check out these weird eyeballs).

 He is in size 2 diapers but I just bought size 3. He's wearing 9 month clothing, still just has 2 bottom teeth, and still wakes up around 3 times a night. I wish I could get that to quit b/c frankly, it's exhausting after 8 months. He LOVES baths and splashes and spins around in there. If anything can cheer him up, it's Mara, baths, and bubbles. He even reached out and popped a bubble today.

 

 Aren't baby grins the best?

 We've just been keeping up with our routines throughout January - work/daycare, playtime at home, dinner, books/bedtime, start over.

 Work has been very busy for us, so we tend to do nothing on the weekends, which is great. The weekend of these pictures, I was in a t-shirt. That's NC weather for ya...

 

 Isaac loves to give raspberries. He rolls everywhere and sticks everything in his mouth. We have to watch out now since some of Mara's toys are on the smaller side. He really loves chewing one of her backpack straps.

 Raspberries!

 Check out the awesome daily hairstyle.

 Keeping a stick away from the dogs. Her height is just toooooo tempting for the pups. Easy access.

 She still love to drive her race car, although the amount of light in the day restricts us to weekend driving. She will drive until the battery runs down.

 

 When Mara drives her race car, the whole family gets exercise. Daddy will ride his mountain bike to follow her, I will walk or jog after her, and Arson runs along, too. Hahaha.

 

 

 Don't worry, Isaac. One day you'll be big enough.

 

 These were taken 5 days past his 8 month mark... but oh well. Here ya go.

 

 Yes, he plays with Mara's old baby things.

 Lots of toys... trying to keep him entertained!!!

 Yummy block.

 

 

 See the mohawk??

 He's my big boy.

 

 

 

 

  Hope this satisfies you for now and excuses the length between posts. Happy weekend!

Merry Christmas

 We hope it was a great Christmas for you and that you enjoyed our card!

 I have so many pictures from our trip but only had time tonight to resize a few. Enjoy!

 

 Mara's first ride on Spanky!

 Our family all dressed up.

 Christmas morning. Love them.

Party videos - take 2

Well, I can't get this thing to let me upload my larger videos. Here ya go:

http://youtu.be/JBzVBSj8yPA

and finally,

http://youtu.be/i0zQToB2fPM

Enjoy. 

Happy 3rd Birthday, my big girl

We celebrated Mara's 3rd birthday yesterday. Just wanted to share a few highlights of her day. I made sure to get a video of her opening Grandmom's/Pop-pop's present:

This does NOT want to load my videos of her receiving her powerwheels! ARG!!! Anyway, I will try those again soon. She had a BLAST and after about 10 or 15 minutes she really got the hang of driving it so Zack turned on the fast mode (5 mph). She loooved shoving it into high gear.

Thanks to everyone who joined us yesterday, for all your kind thoughts and generous gifts, and to all those who were thinking of her from afar. She was looking forward to her Dora party for so long and it made her day. I blinked back tears when she got out of her car on multiple occassions to give goodbye hugs and say "Thank you for coming" without me prompting!!! My little girl is so grown up! She starts the big kid class (Pre-K) today and sounds to be having a blast! She only spoke to me on the phone for like 2 seconds before she was off tracing letters!

Oh Toddler

First off, I don't have a lot of pictures to share right now because all recent ones are candidates for our Christmas card. I did take a few of Mara, though, which shows how I bribed her to take the family photos. Yes, I had to bribe because our Saturday photo session didn't turn out so well and we had to reshoot on Sunday.

 You want me to smile?

 Uh huh... well, you're gonna have to pay up.

 Cooperation!

For those of you I haven't told... we heard Mara banging around in her room after we put her to bed last night. I walk in and she's out of bed, has her toothbrush and yummy flavored toothpaste out and claims she's brushing her teeth (which we had already done). We have caught her sucking the toothpaste tube before... so I take that away, put her back to bed and return to what I was doing. A little while later... she's knocking on the door to come out... and when I open it, I've got a slick toddler staring at me. And when I say slick, I mean COVERED in Vaseline!!! We keep a tub of Vaseline in her room because she tends to get chapped cheeks and Z or I dab a miniscule amount on them for relief... but apparently leaving the tub there was a mistake. She basically has a Vaseline BEARD, ear to ear, mouth, chin, nose, hands, arms. She SHONE. I had to call Z to come see and I did my best to wipe her down with a wet washcloth. Poor kid had faceprints in her pillow and on some of her stuffed animals. When we asked her why she did that, she stone faced told us "my face hurt, and now it doesn't." Needless to say, the tub of Vaseline was promptly removed and her room investigated for any other liquids/creams/ink/anything-that-could-make-a-mess.

Our other, uh, incident, occurred last night after Z finished bathing her - she was spic and span clean and I was petting Arson at the top of the stairs, checking his legs because he's been chewing them and checking his belly for any irritation. Mara stoops down and is talking to him and proceeds to poke his penis! Arson's eyes popped out of his head like WHAT THE HECK? I told Mara that was yucky and she needed to go wash her finger immediately! I told her we don't touch that, and Z was saying "we don't touch that on anybody but ourselves, and even then only when wiping." She looked utterly confused as Z sanitized her hand and she stated, "but I don't have a penis." Sigh. You're right honey, I told her. Girls have vaginas. "Yup, bahginas. Girls have bahginas" she said. Then she proceeded to list who in the family has what.