This & That

My mom was here to visit last week and then my dad came up for the weekend - the kids really enjoyed having Grandma and Grandpa here. We enjoyed the opportunity to do a few things without the kids tagging along! We're finally settling down from that excitement.

So many little things lately - I'm just going to list some of the highlights:

Lauren

- Says "bye" to her drawings before erasing them on the magnadoodle

- had a very serious conversation this morning about her night:

me: "Did you have a good sleep last night?"

Lauren: "no"

me: "Why not?"

Lauren: "books"

me: "What do you mean?"

Lauren: "books, fall"

me: "Oh, did you have books in your bed and they fell off and made noise?"

Lauren: nods yes

me: "Did the noise scare you?"

Lauren: "sure"

me: "Maybe we shouldn't keep books in your bed anymore, then"

Lauren: "no, read"

- We have a lot of conversations now like the one above - Lauren is really starting to put a lot of words and concepts together and always surprises us. Another funny example is when my mom, while getting Lauren out of the car after she first got here last week, looked in at Will and commented that he was getting so big. Lauren enthusiastically responded, "He sure is!". So funny.

- Lauren used (kid) scissors for the first time this morning and did a very good job. Mommy held the paper (we were cutting pictures out of magazines and gluing them to make a picture) and told her to open and close, and she was very proud each time she finished cutting out a picture (or sometimes after making each cut) and would exclaim "I did it!"

- loves to swim in her pool and be outside in general

- likes to say "moose" and put her hands up like antlers (see picture) - we're not sure why this particular animal is currently trumping all others, but it's pretty cute

Will

- Has been standing up for almost a month now - it happened for the first time right before we left for Kassandra's wedding. I was laying him down and then holding his hands and pulling him to sit up and he was laughing and smiling, and then one time when I pulled him to sit up he put his legs under himself and pushed himself up! I was pretty taken aback. I said, "What are you doing? You're only 4 months old!" and he laughed and looked very proud. He has continued to do this ever since, almost to the point of not ever wanting to sit but wanting to stand instead. He's quite a strong little guy.

- Still hates riding in the car. We have found that Alison Krauss seems to calm him down. We joke that he likes the haunting melodies and that the songs on the CD we have are mostly somewhat depressing so it must fit his mood when he's in the car. It's only a temporary fix, though - after the first few songs he's right back to crying.

-Will tried a banana! This was not really intentional - I was eating a banana and peeling one for Lauren while holding Will, and when I reached to give Lauren hers Will grabbed mine and immediately put it in his mouth! He didn't really eat any of it, just kind of gummed it, but it was hilarious and of course I had to go get the camera and take pictures :).

- loves to grab everything (and with his long arms can reach more than mommy usually realizes, like the banana example above!) and is a drooling machine - I think it won't be long before we see some teeth!

- still loves watching everything Lauren does

Here is a picture of the kids just hanging out.

Not much else going on here. We're gearing up for Meg's wedding next weekend so we'll be going to Missouri again. Maybe I should get some more Alison Krauss CD's....