A Long Overdue Update May 25, 2011

I know we are really bad about updating the blog recently. Sorry. Here are a couple of recent pictures and updates on the girls.

Lizzie at Olbrich Gardens May 16

Lizzie is doing very well. She finally mastered using the potty in the last couple of weeks. She is very good at it now and can go by herself and we are very proud of her. She is also ready to move up a level in her swimming lessons and will start to learn to swim front crawl on her own this summer. She is also starting ballet this summer and is very excited about that. Right now her favorite story is Cinderella and she loves to pretend we are at the ball by dancing in her room. Then she cries out that the clock struck 12 and runs away leaving one shoe behind. As the prince, Bill or I have to find the shoe and then “try” it on a number of toys before finding the beautiful princess (who is usually hiding) and bringing her back to the palace to dance some more. After another couple of minutes the clock strikes 12 again and we repeat. This can go for hours. Anyone who wants to come to Wisconsin and play this game for an hour or four is welcome. Lizzie is also working hard on her fine motor skills and is getting much better at staying in the lines in her drawings. She also draws things on her own that are occasionally recognizable.

Our Family as Butterflies. I drew the outlines of these butterflies as Lizzie directed and then she colored them while I was mowing the lawn. The one closest to the door is the Daddy, the other large one is the Mommy, and the two little butterflies are Lizzie and Claire.

The Sleepyhead

Claire is growing fast. She is now over 13 lbs and 23″ long. She can hold her head up very well and loves to watch the world around her. She also loves her mobile, books, her crab rattle, and that adorable baby that stares back at her in shiny things.  In the last few days she has become fascinated by blowing raspberries. She cannot quite do it herself, but she loves to watch others and give it her best shot. This is her favorite game and she is quite good at generating a lot of bubbles and drool in the process. She also loves peek-a-boo. Though Claire really loves just about everything, except for messy diapers, or wet clothes.  She sleeps a lot (even through the night occasionally) and when she is awake she is generally smiling and ready for the next adventure.

Where to next? Claire is ready for the next adventure. This was taken at Olbrich on May 16, she enjoyed staring at the leaves above her head while we explored the garden.

Lizzie and Annika go to the Zoo June 3, 2010

Today we met Lizzie’s friend Annika and her mom, Becca, at the zoo!! It was a lot of fun! I did not get any pictures of the girls from the front because they were busy off on their adventure and checking out the animals. Here are some pictures of their backs

acting like monkeys

on the carousel

chasing each other around

checking out the giraffe

measuring their arm span against the other primates

This one is the post-zoo picture. Lizzie played for awhile before falling asleep at nap. When I went to check on her, she had made a bed for Gracie next to her and then tucked herself in. Lizzie started out with the blanket that is on Gracie.

Hiking April 30, 2010

Lizzie and I went to Devil’s Lake yesterday for a day of hiking and a picnic. This is one of my favorite Wisconsin State Parks, it is a large lake surrounded by very steep cliffs. The lake is spring feed and totally isolated.  The cliffs were formed mostly by the glaciers, but the lake did its part too. Lizzie is trying to climb all rocks in sight lately, so I thought she would enjoy a hike at this park where you climb rock stairs up the cliff for a about a half mile. The views from the top are awesome! I told Lizzie that we were going on this hike about two weeks ago and she’s been looking forward to it ever since.  We had a great day and Lizzie did very well.  She hiked all the way, except a short stretch going back down when I had to put her into the backpack because it was too steep for her. I took 67 pictures, but edited them down for this post.

at the base of the Balancing Rock Trail

Lizzie is working hard on her letters, and kept spotting letters in the rocks. This rock was a "P" rock. It was the clearest letter we found all day.

"Hi!"

climbing up

one of the views

I tried to get a better picture in this spot, but Lizzie was just interested in something on her sleeve.

at the top

Did I mention that she likes to climb every rock in sight?

picnic time

After lunch we went wading; it was freezing, but Lizzie loved it!

This is the summary shot. We hiked up the cliff in the back, we ate lunch at the picnic table, and waded in the lake. It was a great day!

Lizzie’s First Post of her Own April 13, 2010

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Hugs & Kisses December 7, 2009

In the last few weeks, Lizzie has picked up an important fact: a hug or a kiss can make practically anything better.

This has come out in a few fun ways:

Every now and then, Lizzie will throw a small tantrum over something.  It doesn’t do her much good – Kathleen and I have gotten pretty good at ignoring these, or taking them as a sign that it’s time to start the bedtime process.  So after a minute or two of crying or pouting, she’ll decide that it’s not going to work, calm down a bit, put her arms up, and say “need hug”. Well, that works – who could resist it? – and after a few seconds’ worth of hug she’s quite calm, and says “Lizzie better!”

Of course, she’s also learned that a kiss makes any owie feel better.  Lizzie still runs into things or falls down a fair amount, and every “bonk” naturally requires that the affected area be kissed immediately.  Occasionally, she’ll even intentionally (but lightly) slap her hand against something and say “Hand hurt.  Hand need kiss.” to whichever parent is looking most pliable at the moment.

The healing powers of hugs and kisses aren’t limited to Lizzie, of course.  Now and then (particularly after Lizzie has bonked into something) one of her animals (usually Bear, shown above in his “hugs and kisses” t-shirt) will re-enact an earlier episode – Bear’s paw gets struck against the table, followed by the declaration “Bear hurt hand!” and a kiss to the injured limb.  Or I’ll suddenly be notified, “Bear crying.  Bear need hug.” and have to drop everything in order to comfort Bear for a few seconds until I’m notified “Bear all better.”  (This also happens when we’re reading The Velveteen Rabbit, when we reach the page where the Rabbit and all the toys have been taken outside.  A large tear is visible on the Rabbit’s cheek, and when we reach this page Lizzie always points out “Bunny crying. Bunny sad! Bunny need hug.”)

If only all of the world’s ills could be solved so easily…

Lizzie’s Prayers November 6, 2009

Lizzie is turning into a very good PK (Pastor’s Kid), she seems to be picking up the overly angelic direction instead of the super rebellious direction. We can only hope this holds. She started joining us in prayers before meals several months ago.  I taught her that prayers are about saying “Yay God!” and she likes to close her prayers by clapping and shouting “Yay God!” This is very cute. In the last week or so she has also picked up on prayers as a way to say thank you to God for the things that we enjoy. I don’t remember explaining this to her, she seemed to figure it out on her own. Now when we say our evening prayer at dinner and she often adds a few things that she is thankful for, like “the moot” (also known as the moon) or “doggies.” This is also very cute. The last few nights she had expressed far more interest in praying than eating. She also picked up on everyone holding hands around the table for prayers while we were visiting Kansas and so our evening prayers are starting to go something like this:

We bow our heads and say the prayer I grew up using, “Lord we thank you for this food, for rest and home and all things good, for wind and rain and sun above, but most of all for those we love.”

Then I add whatever else I am particularly grateful for that day.

Then Lizzie adds her list (e.g. airplanes, sun, and squash), and we say, “Thank you God, for airplanes, sun, and squash.”

Then we say, “Amen.” Lizzie adds, “Yay God!” and start to eat.

Two minutes later, Lizzie comes up with another list and wants us to hold her hands.

Lizzie: “The moot, ‘oggies, an’ milk.”

All: Thank you God for the moon, doggies, and milk. Amen.”

Lizzie: “Yay God!”

Another minute goes by, Lizzie starts saying “Pray!” and reaching for our hands.

Lizzie: ” ‘Ank God, sun, moot, outside.”

All: “Thank you God for the sun, moon, and outside. Amen.”

Lizzie: “An’ stars!”

Kathleen: “Thank you God for the stars too!”

As soon as Bill and I get our hands back to start eating,

Lizzie: “Park, ‘aycare, an’ swimming lessons.”

All: “Thank you God for the park, daycare, and swimming lessons.”

And you get the picture. Last night on her fifth request for the moon and doggies, we gave in and told her she had to stop praying and eat her dinner. She said she was done and asked to get out of her chair. I appreciate that she apparently views dinner more as a time to pray than to eat, but I am concerned about her getting the necessary food.

A Birthday Present for all of you October 27, 2009

Lizzie is two today!  We’ll have some pictures from the day later, but to tide you over: Lizzie’s Internet singing debut!

Pacifers August 24, 2009

We are trying to get Lizzie weaned off of pacifiers. She is supposed to only have them for sleeping now, which she is starting to accept. Lizzie calls these items “ba-ba.” We are not sure where this name comes from because we usually refer to them as “paci” and at daycare they are usually “nuk.” But, Lizzie has her own name. Anyway, here are a couple of good “ba-ba” pictures.

any truly talented pacifier conosuiser can handle two at once

it is also good to share your treasures with your mom--most of the time

Coming back to normal… June 7, 2009

It’s been a crazy couple of week, with Kathleen traveling and all the grandparents coming to visit, but we’re slowly finding our way back to some sort of routine, and I thought I’d fill the rest of you in on some of what’s been going on.  No pictures today, but some semi-random highlights anyway:

• Lizzie is starting to learn colors.  Blue and green are her favorites to point out (maybe because the words have easy vowel sounds – they come out as “boo” and “een”) but red and yellow are not far behind…
• She’s also starting to work out what letters are, and that they’re different from the rest of what’s in her books.  She started with saying “E!” and pointing at any words she could find, but when I identified an O for her, she immediately switched to pointing out each and every O she can find on a page.  I thank the General Mills company for this.
• One activity that she enjoys quite a lot recently is to stand right in front of one of us, so that we’ll bend down, make a “seat” with our hands, and swing her between our legs.  Something that she enjoys only slightly less is “swinging” her smaller stuffed animals in much the same way.  Do unto others, I guess…
• She is going gangbusters at picking up new words.  One that’s rapidly becoming an unfortunate favorite is “My!”, which she employs any time that something she wants is out of her reach (or has been taken away from her).
• When my parents arrived, Lizzie immediately greeted her grandmother with “Nana!”, a name she hadn’t picked up on before that.  Hooray for Skype.  (“Papa” was a bit tougher, but she had it down by the end of the week.)

Hope you all are doing well.  We’ll post pictures when time permits – 2012 is looking good…

Q&A April 16, 2009

Lizzie is steadily getting better at understanding questions and instructions.  It started a month or two back with things like

Me: Lizzie, do you want to eat?
Lizzie: (Stops what she’s doing and heads off in the direction of her highchair)

or we’d say something like “time to go” and she’d be off to the gate at the top of the stairs.

Then we started working on learning the names of body parts, so we get exchanges like this one, which anyone who has seen us in the last month has probably witnessed:

Me: Lizzie, where’s your ear?
Lizzie: Eee! (Grabs and flaps both ears)
Me: Where’s your eye?
Lizzie: Eyeeeee! (Closes one eye and puts a finger on it)
Me: Where’s Daddy’s eye?
Lizzie: Eyeeeee! (Carefully inserts a finger underneath my glasses)
…and so on

She’s also learned how to nod and shake her head for “yes” and “no”. So we can ask “Do you want more cereal?” and actually expect to get an answer! It’s so exciting.

The fun part is that, even if she doesn’t understand the question or know the answer, she’s pretty good at knowing that it is a question, and always tries to give an answer. For example, tonight I asked her where her arm was, and she got that after a little thinking, but “leg” had her stumped, so she pointed to her back. This one’s my personal favorite from that category:

Me: Lizzie, if you don’t know the answer to a question, do you pick an answer at random?
Lizzie: (nods)

The best part, though, is that for three nights running, her response to “Ok, Lizzie, it’s time for bed” has been:

1. Go find a stuffed animal
2. Follow (or lead) Mommy or Daddy into the bedroom
3. Hand the stuffed animal over to be placed into the crib
4. Hold her arms up to be picked up and placed in the crib
5. Lie down so Mommy or Daddy can put a blanket over her
6. Go to sleep with nary more than a whimper

So amazing