January Randomness

I have a box of pictures that all the kids have liked looking through. The pictures are rejects or duplicates, mostly from my film days. So, I don't really care what happens to them. ;) But instead of throwing them away, I kept them for something to amuse the kids. I only get them out now and then, so they're special. Hee! They keep the kids (ahem, *babies*) entertained for quite awhile. Caroline is no exception.

Caroline is at such a fun age! Her little voice is so cute when she talks. Every night at supper, she says, " 'meen!" (Amen) after the prayer. She knows/recognizes several songs, and now tries to sing along a little bit with a few. She sings, "E-I-E-I-O," at the right spot in Old MacDonald. She fills in, "Ewwo (hello)" and "I fine (I'm fine)" in the Hello song I learned when I used to take the two oldest to story time at the library.

It's fun seeing her discover new things, you can almost see the wheels turning in her mind, figuring things out. Lately she likes to stir things in cups. I ask her, "Are you stirring soup, Caroline?" She's so serious about it. Julia and Lauren have taken to asking her too, when they see her stirring! Funny! Caroline takes a stacking cup or toy bowl/pot/cup or a plastic cup pilfered from my cupboard. She then fills it with little stuff: Barbie shoes/utensils/accessories, bits of paper trash she finds on the floor, rubber Polly clothes, beads, dollhouse accessories, hair pretties, Legos, and other miscellaneous choking hazards. And then she walks around the house stirring the, um, mixture. ?? With a toy spoon/fork/knife. Hence, stirring the soup. The mixture is never the same.



Lauren's into making crafts! Almost every day we're home she paints/colors/sticks stickers/glues--making things. Last Tuesday night she brought a bunch of her crafts to give to her Cubbie friends. None of the boys wanted them. :( But all the girls did! :) What's not to like about glittery, pom-pom-y, popsicle stick-y crafts, after all, right?!

Second picture, Austin loving his stuffed animals, last week. He said Timet the Turtle is his favorite (that day anyway).

We've had lots of needed rain this month. One day there was a rainbow outside our front door. Pretty! We don't get many rainbows; probably b/c we don't get much rain! More rain is forecast for this week.

Second picture: Our Christmas cards are still up. Do you see yours? I'm thinking it's time to take them down, since it's almost February. We do like looking at the pictures though. I save the photographs and put them in an album. Well plan to put them in an album. I had all the card photos from our first Christmas on, in a magnetic album, but then it got full. And I took all the pictures out, since it's really not the best to use those magnetic (sticky) albums anyway. But never got around to putting them in a new book! They're all organized and ready to go, though! :D

These next two are from Jan. 9. We get beautiful, lovely sunsets here, but sadly, don't see many. There are too many hills/trees in the way. However, right before sunset, Jan. 9, the sky turned this gorgeous pinky orange color. It wasn't a true sunset, just right before filling the whole sky, so pretty!

Julia received a kit to make this pom pom scarf (below) for Christmas. She worked on it, and finished it, the last part of vacation. It turned out really cute! The only thing, she made it exactly how she was supposed to, but I think it could use a few more pom poms. When they squish together, you see the cord they were strung on, and there are gaps. There is some extra yarn, so we'll have to see what she does.

And another cute one of Austin with his Lego man. Austin plays Legos all the time these days! It's frustrating for him though; he doesn't have a good place to leave them set up where Destructo Baby won't destroy his creations! Unfortunately, a lot of his neat projects get broken. He builds, usually on the card table in the family room, but Caroline can reach up there, except for about a 12" square in the center! Which isn't enough room for much!

No More Zoo

Our zoo membership expires today, so we took one last trip, two weeks ago, on Jan. 16. We picked up a couple $5 Footlongs from Subway, as we've done before, and had a picnic lunch at the zoo.

The giant anthill was enjoyed by all the kids, even Caroline got to go down, with Julia. Don't let her hohum thumb-sucking expression fool you; she had the biggest smiles after sliding down! She kicked and balked, throwing a little fit when we left the hill. Every time we go to the zoo, different plants are in bloom. I like seeing them all! Especially the cacti. Not that they're my favorite plants (they're not), but it's intersting seeing their flowers, since you don't see them all the time.


Lazy lions

We haven't ridden the zoo train every visit, but the kids always want to. Since it was our last visit, we did it this time.

And, they got rides on this little train. I think only one kid is supposed to fit, but they squished together, and that worked fine. Julia rode with Caroline.

Julia by pretty fishies

I think Austin's by a macaw, and Lauren, of course, by an elephant.

Pretty pink flamingoes--they stink, though. :P

Austin and Lauren liked climbing on this rock before we left (while waiting for some of us to go to the bathroom before we left). Brian teased them, saying it was his rock. They play that game more often, with big rocks. Ha!

We used our zoo membership five times, including our trip to the Oregon Zoo in August. It definitely paid for itself! We've enjoyed our family outings to the zoo. And the Santa Barbara Zoo is just perfect for us: close enough (1 1/2 hrs) where we can plan a day trip, and far enough that it's a special trip. It's also the right size of zoo to spend just a few hours at. It was a bonus that we could use the membership for other zoos too!

Eighteen Months

Caroline turned 18 months January 10. Eighteen months! She is getting to be such a big girl. Well, she's still little, but she's growing up more and more. We had her 18-mo. appt. yesterday, and she got weighed on the big-kid scale; no more sitting in the infant scale for her. She stood there so seriously and still, while the nurse got her weight. She was 22 lbs. with clothes and shoes; nurse said probably about 21 1/2 lbs. naked.

She is little. In the 20th percentile for weight and 50th for height. At 15 mos. she was in the 15th for weight and 30th for height, so she has grown. I have to say I was a little surprised it was even that much, as she is *such* a picky eater! But apparently she's getting what she needs. Seriously, the list of foods she refuses is much, much, much longer than the foods she will eat. The only thing she'll always eat is yogurt! Pretty much everything else is hit or miss.


Caroline is into everything these days. She scatters toys and un-toys (just odds and ends of stuff) hither and yon throughout the house. The most random things get scattered and strewn about in the oddest places. Library books in the bathroom. My kitchen towel in the girls' room. Fridge magnets all over. Bits of paper and big kids art all over. Toy food in the tub. Tupperware in Austin's rooms. One of Lauren's boots under the coffee table--the other: ??? Makes for interesting mornings, trying to scramble out the door!!

Caroline likes to climb. It scares me half to death. She climbs on the fireplace hearth and sits like it's her personal bench. At least it's somewhat low. She climbs in the baby rocking chair and the glider rocker--fine, until she stands in them and rocks. She climbs on the coffee table, stools, the toilet, on and on it goes. I hope there are no more head injuries in our future.

A couple weeks ago Lauren was eating lunch and fell off her chair (she sits on it funny often), bumping her head on the floor. Now, the floor is hard--laminate on a cement slab foundation. Ouch! Lauren cried a good, long time, then seemed ok. She went to bed for her nap, then came out because she said she felt funny, like she had to throw up. And proceeded to throw up all over the kitchen floor! I called the doctor, and the nurse said it's typical for a kid to throw up once after a head injury. Thankfully that was it, but it was a little scary, too, especially since Austin's head injury was only a couple weeks before that. I told Julia about it after school, and she said, "We've been having a lot of head injuries around here lately!" My thoughts, exactly. Enough!



Caroline continues to be quite the little talker! And reader! She now looks at books, as she has for months, but reads them to herself. It is the cutest thing! She turns the pages and jabbers away, using all kinds of expression and voice inflection. She reminds me so much of Julia--such verbal little girls. Caroline also sits still for a long time--has a long attention span, able to focus on playing/reading/whatever for a long time, almost like a preschooler (and probably longer than some preschoolers--I've seen lots of Cubbies, after all. Hee! Some of them are b.u.s.y!) just like Julia. Funny how that works!

The words Caroline can say now, are kind of like the foods she refuses: The list of what she can say, and foods she refuses, is much longer than the list of words she can't say, and foods she will eat. :D She will repeat almost everything, when we say, "Caroline, can you say _____?"

Some cute things she says (just a small sample of what she is able to say):
Julia: Deeya
Bailey: Beelee
Pongo: Pawbo
yogurt: gogoot
I ask, "How're you doing?" She answers, "Goot..." So sweetly. :)
dog: daw
cracker: cackaw
cookie
popcorn: pop-pow
She says, "Mm hmm," and sometimes nods her head "yes" when answering affirmatively.
Says, "Nooo..." so sweetly, sometimes shakes head "no" when answering negatively.
out
bye bye
Cheerio: koo koo Kind of funny how that comes out; Ah choo is Ka koo!
umbrella: bella or labella, kind of
balloon: boon
car: caw
cupcake
pancake
stinky: teenky
I ask, "What does the bell say?" She answers, "Deen daw! Deen daw!" (Ding dong! Ding dong!" :D

We are enjoying this sweet, fun age!

For Better...or Worse...?

For Christmas, I got this lovely, cozy, set of pajamas. Brian said they must be from Santa, because he would never give his wife flannel pajamas.


Fast forward a week. At Brian's mom's, I got my PJs on and came downstairs to relax. The kids were in bed, so might as well be comfy, right? Well, Alvina took one look at me, and asked, "Are those your pajamas, Kristi?"

I wondered why she'd ask that, and she started laughing.

A few minutes later, she came downstairs, dressed, well, like me! Hee! In the. same. pajamas! Brian's sister, Joy had given her her set. We were cracking up, and couldn't stop laughing. Brian kept shaking his head in disbelief, a funny look on his face. I'm sure he never thought he'd see the day (night?) when his wife and mother were wearing the same thing to bed.

Of course, his mom said she has young taste. And I told him it only means a brother and sister have the same taste. I'm not sure either of us convinced him. He just kept shaking his head, not sure what to think. Or maybe trying to shake the image from his head. He still insists mine are from Santa...

New Years with Grandma

Caroline wasn't 100% yet, New Year's Day, but better, and no fever. So we headed down to Ontario to Brian's mom's. We opened presents with her that night. The next day we slept in and relaxed and hung around her house. The kids like playing with different toys she has there. Austin and Julia played shuffleboard with Grandma. Brian played later, too.


Julia colored--her new paper doll set, and Grandma's coloring book. Lauren played with Auntie Joy's (maybe Aunt Brenda's too??) old--ahem, vintage--Barbie stuff. Lauren loved the pink Corvette! Loved it! She says she wants a Barbie car for her birthday. In all my old (vintage) Barbie stuff in our attic, I don't have a car. Lauren asked what she could use for a Barbie car at home. We suggested: Caroline's Dora car (ride-on)? Austin's garbage truck? Austin's tow truck? Austin's tractor? Hee! That boy has the vehicles, though...

Austin played Grandma's Wii. So did Brian. Bowling, baseball, golf, boxing. Just what they like. All of us grown-ups took turns? together? kept close tabs on Caroline so she wouldn't go sneaking off climbing Grandma's stairs. Of course the stairs were the most interesting thing to explore...

Sunday we all went to church. And out for lunch to Red Robin afterwards. I took these pictures before we left to go home.

Brian's mom took this family picture and emailed it to me. :)

Happy 2010!

Yes, I do realize we are almost a month into 2010 by now. But I wanted to share a few more stories before I am up-to-date.

Julia and Austin get 3 weeks Christmas vacation. It is *so* nice! The week before Christmas is busy with preparations. The week after we're recovering (ha!) and playing with new toys. The week after that is kind of a bonus. We pretty much just hung out around the house. Not bored, just relaxing. :D

The big kids made these 2010 glasses to ring in the new year. The idea was from Family Fun magazine. They were all into making them--and all thought their own pair was the best! I considered making Caroline her own, but didn't think she'd leave them on. And really thought she'd bend them up and wreck them, so forget spending time doing that! She was sick and not feeling well at all New Year's Eve.


We'd planned to go down to Brian's mom's house after work 12/31. But Lauren was sick, coughing all. day. long. And night. The vaporizer helped. Caroline was getting Lauren's cold, and just miserable. Fever, runny nose, coughing, miserable! So we stayed home that night. Julia, Austin, Brian and I played Dutch Blitz.


Lauren is too young for it, so colored in her new giant Tinkerbell book from Christmas. Giant book from Costco--everything's giant at Costco. ;)


Brian got out sparklers he'd saved from the 4th of July, and I think that was the kids' favorite part of the night. They were *so* excited, running all over the yard and back and forth across our [quiet] street!

They went to bed but Brian and I stayed up till midnight to ring in the new year.

Modesty Police

This morning Lauren was making sticker pictures. She was cutting apart magazine stamps--the ones that you get in junk mail--and sticking them in her notebook. She chatters away the whole time. At one point I heard, "That wady is 'appwopiate!" Meaning, "That lady is inappropriate!" The lady was on the cover of a fitness magazine or something. Wearing "inappropriate" fitness attire.

Then, Lauren played Princess Memory with Pooh and Piglet. Yes, Pooh and Piglet!! She saw on Max and Ruby where they play games with their stuffed "friends". Anyway. Lauren told me very seriously, "Jasmine has 'appwopiate cwothes!" (Jasmine has inappropriate clothes.) This was after she was calling Genie "Jamie".


Julia has pointed out during several TV commercials where the ladies are dressed inappropriately. She hears this at school, knows about the dress code, where girls are not allowed to wear spaghetti straps or halter tops. And somehow knows girls shouldn't be showing their bellies. I don't know that we've discussed this too much; maybe a little. It's kind of funny hearing the 4-year-old making modesty calls on the princesses, though! Especially when she herself has no issue running around the house with no clothes... ;)