Claire!

Claire has been a little busy body lately. She has picked up so much! Here are a few of her new skills:

1. cleaning - she will pick up and put toys back where they belong. She wipes herself, the table and spills she makes with her napkin. She picks up any piece of lint, trash, dog hair and puts it in the trash can. And she puts her own diapers in the trash and says "tinky" = stinky.
2. She now says "purple" "bayoon" = balloon, "mine!!", "E..-mo" = Elmo in addition to the already mastered "no" "all done" "bye bye" and a host of other words.
3. She understands everything we say now and will nod yes if she agrees or wants it or say no if not.
4. She understands time out warnings and has gotten a few. She does not like them.
5. When Luke cries she gets upset and tries to comfort him. This happens when he throws a tantrum too. And just a little bit ago in Target, 2 kids were fighting and she was trying to tell them to stop.
6. She is a big girl now at school and sleeps on a cot. Soon she will move up to the next room.
7. Points to her body parts or ours and names them. Ex: points to her eyes and says "eyes"
8. Says her friends names in school, like Ben. She cannot say "Arnold" yet though - that's a toughy.
9. She can blow bubbles with the wand, something Luke still cannot do. He just spits on it and can't figure out how to move his lips just right.
10. She can get on all the furniture by herself and sits on the big couch to watch Noggin. She also likes to take her bowl of cheerios up there with her, although usually many of them end up on the floor. That's why we have Cayman, but she gets very upset when Cayman eats things that have fallen on the floor.
11. Speaking of Cayman, she constantly is harassing her. She loves to yank her tail, pull her fur really hard our grab her right above the eyes. Cayman takes this in stride, but comes to me and asks to go out or to the basement to get away from her. We are working on "gentle" petting with Claire.
12. She is still a dancer. In the morning she gives me the remote to turn on the music so she can dance.
13. She loves to wear her sunglasses.
14. She copies whatever Luke does and he feeds off this. If I say no to whatever he is doing and she laughs, he will keep doing it.
15. She loves to play with balls outside and ride on her big wheel bike.
16. When she is not getting what she wants, she acts like Jello and I cannot pick her up - she makes it impossible.
17. She brings us all our own shoes when it is time to go, including socks. She can say "Socks" too. She tried to put on her own shoes.
18. When I tell her no, she gives me this sly look. She turns her head and shifts her eyes to look back at me watching her do what I just told her not to do.
19. Sometimes she gets this crazy energy and just start running and yelling all over the house.
20. She loves to poke my bellybutton and grab my boobs for giggles. Then Luke noticed my boobs b/c of Claire and asked me "Mommy, when I grow up will I have big ones like you?" No I told him, boys don't have these.
21. She is a good helper. At school a baby kept thrown his pacifier down on the floor. Claire would pick it up and give it back to him b/c he would scream. About the 4th time she had done this for him, she got smart and stuck it in his mouth and just held it there. =)

In Luke news, he says his prayers really fast like I always did. He knows the Lord's Prayer by heart and we usually say that at bedtime. But for some reason, when he heard it in church last Sunday right before communion, after we all said Amen, he said "Thank you for a delightful dinner, may I please be excused". LOL!

This was also Blueberry week at school. Everything was themed around blueberries and they got to eat some in class. His teacher, Ms Kim, asked everyone what blueberries tasted like and Luke was the first one to answer. He said "I think blueberries taste like chicken!!"

Luke and Claire also love to play in the water. They have water days at school, but we also have several kids here in the neighborhood who we play in the wading pool and sprinkler with. They love it! I will post some pics and a video in a little while b/c apparently I have to resize all the crap...this is so annoying.

Allergies? A New Yorker?

It has been a few weeks since I have blogged. Things are busy and the kids are running around like crazy. They love to play outside. GW bought Luke 3 water guns last weekend and he had a blast playing with the neighborhood boys with them. They also had a wading pool out, a slip n slide, a trampoline with a sprinkler on it, and a sprinkler. That was a fun day to watch all the boys go from one thing to the other. They also lined up and would run one by one and jump/fall/trip into the wading pool. We laughed a lot.

Claire can now say All Done", "Up", "No no no" and she says something for her blanket, but it doesn't sound like blanket. She is a dancer for sure. Each morning she hands me the remote to turn on the music. Music she likes? The Sirius 80s and 90s channel. She dances and dances, twirls, eats a little, dances some more. Way cute. She bobs her head or taps her hands to the beat. And she also has shown a few swim suit model poses for us too when she falls down. Claire sings now too! She loves to sing Old MacDonald and says the EIEIO part really well!

Luke on the other hand, he sings his own theme music while playing. It is kind of Star Wars-like. He runs around with his toys or on the playground singing his theme. He also likes to sing Puff the Magic Dragon with me at night. We put in the CD and sing/read the book that goes with it. He likes to do it over and over again. Then he says the Lord's Prayer all by himself...yep, he knows the whole thing and can do it pretty fast. But, sometimes he replaces the word "bread" with "croissant." He thought of that change all by himself.

In addition, we were asked by his teachers if we were from New York. Several people have asked us this after talking to Luke. He talks with a New York accent. We have no idea why or where he got it. Words such as dog, park, bird, earth, gorgeous, yeah, and many more come out sounding like he is a true New Yorker.

Luke also had his class performance at the graduation ceremony for the Pre-K's this week. His class sang and signed twinkle twinkle and then they recited a poem for the graduates. Luke did a pretty good job, when he wasn't jumping or body-checking his classmates. He asks me a lot now if I am so proud of him. I am. =)

Last weekend was low-key but full of interesting things. First, Claire came home from daycare with all these bug bite looking things on her. I was worried something was going around school and called them back. Just roseola, but this didn't look like that. I got off the phone and those bug bites had spread all over her in huge red patches. I called the Dr, left an urgent message and they called me back in about 30 minutes. Turns out they were hives and she is allergic to something. She was completely fine except for a little itching. She was fine indoors; it was just outdoors that she had the issue. Cottonwood was apparently pretty high that day, so maybe it was that. The Dr told us just to monitor it and keep a log of happenings before her next appointment and they'll evaluate her for allergy testing then. So far, no other occurences.

I had a nice birthday week. Luke sang to me several times and asked if we were having a party (insert NY accent on the word party). He loved the singing, suggested we play some games where he was a trooper, I was Asajg and GW was yoda. He loved the cake; Claire wouldn't touch it.

Lastly, and probably most funny, Luke and Claire had a lady come to school to sing songs with them and read them stories. At dinner that night I asked him what songs they sang. He said "We sang Drink, if you wanna get loose!" GW and I looked shocked and I asked him again. He repeated "Drink, if you wanna get loose!" I asked how that song went and he wouldn't answer. I asked his teacher the next day and her face was just as incredulous as mine. They sang no such song. In fact they sang BINGO, 5 little monkeys, old macdonald...the usual. She had no idea where he got those words. We don't either. But it was pretty funny that he came up with that.

Claire is 15 months already!

I can't believe my little girl is so big now! She is just growing so fast. And she towers over everyone else. At her check-up last Wednesday she weighed 23.6 pounds (60%) and was 32.5" tall (95%). She also got 2 shots and cried for about 2 seconds and then was fine. She got GW's pain tolerance I think. She knows her body parts and will point to them when you ask her. She even points to her teeth. She has 4 teeth and 3 more coming in now, including 1 molar. She loves giving kisses and reading books. She picks up a book and backs into your lap and plops down. She likes the singing books and especially sparkly books. However, Claire does have a temper. She has a great mad face and her eyebrows get very low and mean. In addition, she hates it when GW and I kiss, hug or cuddle. She screams at the top of her lungs and runs over and hits me. And the other day, she actually bit me to get me off of HER daddy. Then, as I writhed in pain on the floor, she lovingly smiled at GW and said "Daaaaaaa."

Claire is definitely in the biting phase and teh grinding teeth phase. I also caught her today pulling Luke's ears to get him out of a chair she wanted. He just ignored her, eventhough I know it had to hurt. Claire got time out on the steps - her first ever on the steps. She did not like it but stayed put for 1 minute. On the flip side, she did have one of Luke's toys last night and he wanted it. I told Luke to ask Claire nicely if he could play with his toy. He asked her nicely and she freely gave it to him. Like she understood every single word.

She does tower over all her friends at school. Addy is the only other girl her age she can play with there. She is going to be transitioned to the next room sometime in the next few months. This means that soon she will be sleeping on a cot in the infant room and not the crib as they get her ready for that move.

On to Luke. He loves role play. This week he is into the movie Wall-e. He is wally and I am eve. It started out as Even, but then I figured out he was trying to say Eve. My name is no longer mommy, it is Eve. I am not allowed to call him Luke. He and the boys in the neighborhood also love to dig in the dirt to find earthworms. They are allowed to dig in our front area since we tore everything out to replace it all later. Andrew brought over his little dump truck and we had several shovels to go around. They had a great time and I have never seen so many boys sound like girls once they found a worm. It was hilarious. Luke said "Eeeeeeeee...run away!!!" And he ran away. They loved it.

Luke is also a fabulous narc. GW said "Oh my God" as we were driving and Luke said "Mommy, daddy said the bad thing. He should say Oh My Gosh." I said he was very right and daddy would get timeout when we got home and no TV. In addition, this evening Luke did not want to eat his meat. GW told him no cookies unless he ate the meat. He said "Mommy said I didn't have to. Mommy, do I have to eat my meat?" I said "No, but I would really like you to at least taste it." He immediately glares at G and says "SEEEEEEEEE!" It was hard not to laugh.

Regarding the weather, we have had some hard rain lately and Luke says "Mommy, can God stop the rain now? When will go stop the rain?" I said "When the flowers are all watered." He said "Like I watered the flowers at Matt's house?" I said "Yes, exactly." He is making so many connections lately. At school they blew up a balloon to show that it takes up space. That is all he talked about for the next 3 days.

This weekend we have the circus and Caleb's birthday party at the Little Gym. Luke is very excited.

VA trip and other stuff

First, the other stuff I have forgotten to blog about.

Sitting at the dinner table about 2 weeks ago, Luke breaks out into song. Unfortunately, it is the "Diarrhea cha cha cha" song. It was very hard not to laugh and tell him that is not a good song to sing at the dinner table. He can only sing it in the bathroom.

Luke has discovered his man-part. I was laying in bed with him last week, cuddling before he fell asleep and he was moving his hands around. I had my eyes closed pretending to fall asleep. Then Luke says "Mommy, when you touch it, it gets really really big!" I open my eyes and say "What does?" He says gleefully "My penis!!" He told GW this the next day. And in VA he told and showed Papa and Nana at different times. All Papa could say was "Awesome." No one was expecting that. I have forewarned his teachers.

We had a great time in VA! We left on Thursday right after work. It rained the whole way. Luke was a chatterbox. 3 minutes into the drive he asks "Are we there yet?" No, Luke. We have 7 more hours to go. Are there droids in those mountains? Sure. Where is the tallest tree? Look outside and find it. I want to listen to At-At music. etc.... We finally got to Lynchburg about 12:15am and then it took a little while to put the kids back to bed.

On Friday, Luke and Daddy went hiking. Luke helped make the pancakes first and did a great job. Claire and I had fun with Erica and Alan and Nonno during the day. We took a walk around the neighborhood and Claire fell asleep. We then had a nice, big family dinner at Nonno's and an iChat with Bis-Nonno and Oma. Erica and I danced a lot and Claire and Luke joined in some. Luke also got an awesome new planets puzzle and put that together on the floor.

On Saturday, Luke helped Nana make chocolate chip muffins. Then at 10 we went to Peaksview Park to play. Max and Julie came too. Luke had a blast playing with Max on Saturday. I met my old high school friends with their kids or kids to be on the playground too. It was a gorgeous day, minus the gnats. The sun wore the kids out and naptime happened pretty fast. In the evening, I went to the double-baby shower while the kids hung at Nana and Papa's house with everyone, including Uncle Ben. All too soon it was Sunday morning and we had to leave. GW and I decided next time, we'll just have to take Monday off too. Just as we start to relax, it is time to go.

I'll attach some pics from the weekend here too.

Kabooms!

Well, you know by now that Luke loves to say Kaboom! We don't use the term "guns" so he calls them Kabooms and they make a kaboom noise. Well, last night he suddenly says "Mommy, I have to go potty!" We run into the bathroom, he says he has to poop and KABOOMMMMM! Yes, he has explosive diarrhea. He popped up at once point it was so powerful. I was laughing and said he had kabooms coming out of his butt. He did not like this and said "noooooooo. no kabooms are in my butt." Tonight, the one and only thing he told Gigi on the phone was "I had kabooms come out of my butt." I thought he had forgotten. Apparently not.

Claire is a slick little spider monkey. She was banging her cup on the table. I told her no several times and finally just put her placemat back under her. She looks at me defiantly and then reaches way over to the left, and bangs her cup over there, far away from the placemat. She is GW's kid for sure. This is a tactic of his.

Claire is still growing so fast. I think she needs new sneakers again. And she gets very upset if someone leaves the house without her. When she even suspects somone is going somewhere (sees them putting on their shoes, or I touch my purse) she runs to grab her shoes too.

Nana was up for a nice visit this past week too. Luke and Claire had so much fun with her. They had a tea party out on the back patio, played ring around the rosie, puzzles, colored etc... It was nice. Claire really likes nana. We can't wait to see more family in 2 weeks!

Who wants candy?!

After eating some lunch today, Luke announces "Mommy, I have to go poop." "OK, go poop" I tell him. He is in the bathroom with the door closed for a little bit, then yells out "Who wants candy?!!!" no no no no no....

Oh dear....

I got Luke out of the tub. I was drying him off and getting his PJs on him. He looks at my shirt and says "What are those?" I said "what are what?" He said "those things" and pointed to my boobies. I wasn't going to lie, so I told him they were breasts and only girls have them. He said "No. Boys have them too. See!" and he tried to stick his out.