turned around (in a good way!)

Today Meredith rode on my back in the Ergo for the first time. She was comfortable and content while I vacuumed the main floor of our house. I think we are both going to love this new carrying option.

3:20

Yes, three hours and 20 minutes. One would think Thomas had never seen Play-Doh before. Surely a two year old sitting in one spot and engaged in a single activity for this length of time must be some sort of Guinness World Record. No food, no drinks, only Play-Doh -- oh my!

new favorites

Thomas' new favorite: Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go by Richard Scarry. Santa must have known it was also M's favorite as a little boy. Thomas loves this new book.


dancing queen from c on Vimeo.

Meredith's new favorite song: Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes. She likes several songs but this one really makes her kick up her heels!

Merry Christmas!

Today was the fourth consecutive day of celebrating the holidays with family. Whew! The kids have been doing great and had such a good time today at Grandma's house...

Thomas became an expert Gift Opener today. He opened his, helped Meredith with hers and even helped my 17 year old cousin with hers!

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The kids were spoiled by their uncles - Meredith enjoys a new interactive ball from Uncle Pete and Thomas loves this new radio-controlled "Hummer monster truck - oh wow!" from Uncle Doug - as well as by Grandma & Grandpa, my uncle, Aunt Darcy, Grandma's friends...

fun photo

Really, how cute is this photo of Meredith with her two youngest cousins?? It's a first Christmas for all three!

eight months

At eight months, my fingers are crossed Meredith's sleep patterns may finally be falling into place. Her two naps are becoming more regular and she's sleeping for longer periods at night. It seems every night this past week she's increased the first sleep period by a whole hour. Last night's was a full 9 hours and really couldn't come at a better time. With the craziness of the holidays in full gear, it's nice for this mama to have better sleep. Of course, seeing this pretty little face never gets old no matter what time of day!

W Family Christmas

This weekend we celebrated Christmas with M's family. With some of the family coming in from out of town, it becomes a two day affair full of presents, smiles, arm wrestling the cousins...

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And, of course, the usual holiday goodies of delicious foods, great drinks and lots of merriment shared by all. Dinner and gift exchange one night followed by brunch the next morning before everyone heads back home -- a wonderful time, for sure!

bath night

Rub-a-dub-dub

Two kids in the tub

Now what do you think they’ll do?

They’ll swish

And they'll splash

They'll swish, splash, SPLASH!

Rachel & Emily

T draws with Rachel

Today we got to spend the whole day with the kids' cousins Rachel and Emily. Both are great with them and wonderful for me to have around. They were so helpful when we hit a couple of stores this morning, played with Thomas all day long at our house (much to his delight and mine sice this was day 3 without a nap!), lavished endless attention on both dogs, loved Meredith as much as she'd let them, etc. What fun for me! [Girls - come back tomorrow...?? ]

okay, so now what?

Meredith can get on all fours, but then she just sort of hangs out there. Sometimes she'll push forward and fall on her face. Other times she'll just rock forward and backward, eventually falling to her side. It's been great fun for us to watch her motor skills develop since Thomas never took to rolling. He rolled once at four months and then not again until after he walked. Having a mobile baby (both on the floor and in her crib) is very entertaining. It certainly keeps us on our toes. I love it!

fudge face

"the green lady lives here..."

I picked up this U.S. map puzzle several months ago for Thomas because I thought he'd enjoy talking about and seeing where family and friends live. I figured it would be difficult for him for awhile, but he's suprisingly good at it. He knows we live in Oregon, great grandma lives with the apples, daddy was born where potatoes grow, mommy went to school with the cows, etc... The holiday card swap we are doing has given us even more states to identify. One of my favorites that he now easily identifies is the state where the "green lady" lives. Just yesterday he was putting New York in its place and said, "We had lunch with the green lady." It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about but then it occurred to me that the Red Robin in Seattle had a Statue of Liberty poster hanging near our table. He had pointed it out while we were there a few weeks ago. So yes, we did have lunch with the green lady...

so long, binky

Meredith came home from the hospital easily soothed with the pacifier. We really liked that Thomas never really used one and knew we wanted to break this habit of Meredith's soon. Over the last month, the binky has become more of a toy and something she would suck on briefly to fall asleep. However, her cold last week gave us the perfect opportunity to chuck the binky. She wasn't able to suck on it with her stuffy nose. Goodbye Binky... farewell... ciao... adios...

I LOVE this new dog bed.

There is no question we spoil these girls. They were "the kids" before the kids (and still are). We allow them on some of the furniture but always have a dog bed around just in case they might be interested in laying on it instead. They never are. But this bed appears to be something different. Neither cared for it initially, but after the neighbor's dog lounged all over it something changed. Suddenly it's a place they both want to be. And to lay together like in the photo above? It's almost unheard of! They lay together, but they will also lay alone when no one else is even in the room. And they actually seem to prefer it over the chairs they usually camp out on in this room. It's crazy, I tell you.

I love this new dog bed. We may need to have one in every room of our house!

a real puppet show!

This morning I took the kids to their first live puppet show - yippee! I knew Thomas would enjoy it, but I didn't know Meredith would also enjoy it as much as she did. I'm now thinking there will be two puppets wrapped and under the tree Christmas morning (and not this silly little baby I found under there yesterday morning!).

the gingerbread house

This evening we constructed our gingerbread house. Thomas took it upon himself to guard the candy toppings while the house was being constructed, sample the candies while we were decorating the house and then eat the leftovers when we were done. He had a great time!

Meredith's first (two!) teeth

Meredith visits Santa

I took the kids downtown to visit the real Santa Claus this morning. It went better than I expected but only because Meredith didn't cry on Santa's lap. I knew going in that Thomas wouldn't want his photo taken with Santa and he didn't. However, he did enjoy playing on a part of the old monorail they had available for the kids and walking through Santaland. Perhaps next year he'll like Santa, but then Meredith probably won't...

Thomas aka Santa's Helper aka Animal Hero...

Some lucky dogs are "feeling the love" this evening after Santa's Helper, aka Thomas, delivered a bag full of new dog toys and treats to the local Humane Society. They gave him a Certificate of Appreciation and an envelope full of stickers, a pen, a bracelet, etc. Afterwards we walked through so he could say hi to the dogs, cats and rabbits. As always, he had his stuffed rabbit with him. It was fun to watch him show it to the rabbits and talk to them about it. He really enjoyed this visit to the shelter (as did we!).

O Christmas Tree!

We were fortunate to have gorgeous sunny weather today for our trip to a Christmas tree farm. I prefer the skinny, Charlie Brown-type tree and think 4 feet is perfect while M likes the perfectly conical variety that is taller than his 6 foot frame. We compromised on a great tree and Thomas agreed that it was the tree for us. M cut it down (above, left) and afterwards we warmed up with candy canes, cookies and hot chocolate (above, right). A perfect little family outing for us all with Meredith snug as a bug in the Ergo. She didn't complain once -- even with her cold and first two teeth coming in. She's such a trooper...

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Afterwards we stopped by Grandma's house for a visit and some lunch. As luck would have it, their cousin Emily was there. Thomas loves Emily and she has incredible patience and interest for a 7-1/2 year old. She's always been so great with Thomas and now with Meredith. Thomas is going to have some stiff competition for Emily's attention because Meredith was very interested in Emily and really enjoyed spending time with her (and Grandma!) today.
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the advent calendar

left: Thomas looks for the box with a number 7 on it.

right: Look, there's a sweet treat inside!
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I finally got around to making our advent calendar yesterday. Only one week late! Inside each day's gift box is something small like a sweet treat, sticker, etc. but all have a slip of paper describing a fun family activity to tackle that day. I think Thomas' favorite will be Build a Fort & Play Inside with Flashlights while mine will be Make Fondue for Dinner. This weekend we will have to play catch up and open days 1 thru 6. I'm sure he won't mind!

holiday card swap

When I heard about a homemade holiday card swap for kids about a month ago, I didn't hesitate to sign Thomas up. He loves to get mail, but more importantly, he enjoys mailing things and doing little art projects with me so I knew this would be perfect for him. This week we've been painting the cover of our cards, addressing envelopes and adding stickers and colors to the envelopes. We are sending out a dozen cards total - ten to children around the world, one to the woman who is coordinating the swap and one to the friend who told me about it - and will hopefully receive ten cards back from other children. He's going to love receiving all these holiday cards made especially for him!

video fun

party blower from c on Vimeo.

Just testing out some video using a site some friends like...
Everything Thomas does is cool, but one of Meredith's favorites is the party blower.

The Nutcracker Ballet

Sure, everyone has heard of the Nutcracker Ballet, but how about the Children's Nutcracker Ballet? Well, this morning Thomas and I had a date for the ballet! The Children's Nutcracker is a really fun production and was a great one for his first experience. For one, the performance is an abbreviated version and lasted about 1.5 hours total with an intermission thrown in the middle. And two, the dancers are primarily children (I spotted an adult or two) between the ages of 4 and 7 [Meredith, are you paying attention? That's 4 years from now for you!]. For most, it's their first stage performance. Yes, there was the one little girl who waved to her mom in the audience and the little girl who fell down dancing backwards. And yes, there was more laughter from the audience than the big production would have (you can't help it, these children are so cute!) And yes, the dancing isn't top-notch, but the experience is really fun and totally worth it. We both had a great time!

Upon exiting the building, we heard the roar of motorcycles. !! We quickly made our way over a block to watch the ABATE riders drive up Broadway. Today was the annual Shriners Hospital Toy Run. We watched and waved to hundreds of motorcycles loaded up with presents, stuffed animals and riders in holiday hats and even some riders in costumes. We saw both Santa and Winnie the Pooh on Harleys. I knew Thomas would love seeing this so I was happy we caught it today.