The Berkenhoff Blog

Lately...

2010-04-27T05:20:00.000-07:00

Lately..... lately things have been wonderfully busy.

Easter was great fun as the girls spent 2 hours carefully tie-dying their Easter eggs. On Easter morning they found enough candy to keep us stocked for at least six months!

After Easter, we went to visit Heidi at the Sunflower Salon and Spa where she gave Maddie a trim, and chopped off Sophie's locks. Sophie had decided about a week before this that she wanted to cut her hair "to her ears," by which she meant the top of her ears. We told her she could certainly cut it, but that might be too short.

When we got to the salon, Heidi started lopping Sophie's hair off up to her chin. Heidi asked her what she thought, and Sophie said, "Shorter Heidi!" So Heidi cut another 1/2 inch and asked the same thing. "Shorter Heidi!" Finally we were able to bribe Sophia with a lollipop if she left it this length. At first it seemed so short, but now we all just love it. It makes her look so much older - like the Kindergartener she'll be in the fall!

Last week Brian and I headed to Washington DC to visit my cousin Rachel who moved there in September. We had a fantastic time there with Rach showing us all of the sights. Brian had never been to DC, so we spent our first day visiting all of the monuments, the mall, the capital building, etc. The next day Rachel took us to a winery in the Virginia countryside where we sat sipping Cabernet Franc and enjoying the view of the Blue Mountains.

On Monday morning, Brian and I hopped on Amtrak to head into New York City for a couple of days. Neither of us had been there, so we put on our walking shoes and hit the town. We saw St. Paul's Chapel, the WTC site, strolled through Battery Park, rode the Staten Island Ferry to get a view of the Statue of Liberty, visited Time's Square, the Financial District (aka "home" for Brian), Trinity Church, Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Central Park, the theater district where we saw Chicago at the Ambassador... It was fantastic! While we were gone, the girls stayed with three sets of grandparents and had a great time with all of them!

Needless to say, all four of us are pretty worn out after such a busy and fun week!

Jump Shake Your Booty

2010-03-13T12:50:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of my cousins Laci & Kylie who taught the girls this cheer a couple of weekends ago!

Names

2010-03-13T11:29:00.000-08:00

Sophie has had a baby that she got for her very first Christmas that has always been her favorite. She's pretty tattered and torn now (limbs falling off, splotches of irremovable dirt on her face, etc.) and she is lovingly known as Old Baby. As Old Baby started to show her aging, Grandma Mary (smart woman that she is) bought us a backup of the exact same doll. We eventually had to retire Old Baby to a corner of Sophie's room where she sits and watches all that goes on. (Velveteen Rabbit, anyone?)

Anyway, Sophie and Maddie's other babies have always been named Baby until recently. Now they have discovered the power of names, and it's fun to hear what they come up with. Sophie's New Old Baby (she was known as that for awhile) is now named Annabelle. Other dollies go by various names of Sophie's classmates, and names she hears.

Maddie on the other hand, chooses to be descriptive in her babies' names. Just as her imaginary friends are Bow-a and Heart-y, Maddie's babies go by names like Flowery, Love-a, Rainbow Shirt, and my all time favorite: Love Star Sparkle.

Now how are you going to top a name like that?

Independence

2010-03-07T12:35:00.000-08:00

Today marked a major milestone in our family: this morning at church, for the first time ever, Madelyn choose to go to the nursery while Sophia went with Brian and I to church.

The exciting part in this is not so much that Maddie went to the nursery - she loves going there, but always with Sophie. In fact, Maddie will almost always do exactly what her big sister wants to do.

Most mornings when we ask what Maddie wants for breakfast, she'll ask what Sophie had and then eat that. When getting dressed, Maddie usually wants to know what Sophie has chosen to wear first. And on Sunday mornings, when we ask Madelyn whether she wants to go to church or to the nursery, Maddie always says, "Where is Sophie going?" In fact, one morning several weeks ago I tried to push the issue by saying, "Sophie's going where you're going." That didn't so much work. Maddie and I kept repeating those two lines back and forth to each other until I finally caved and asked Sophie. And the two went to the nursery together.

But today, Madelyn has taken a major step of independence, and I'm so proud of her. Both Brian and I have feared at various times that Maddie will grow up rarely stepping out of Sophie's shadow. Seems like such a little thing, to make a choice of her own, but for little Madelyn Grace, that's a huge show of independence!

Lucky girl

2010-01-24T12:57:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned on here before how blessed I am? How much I cherish my family? How often they make me laugh and smile and just plain feel happy? Well, I am, I do and they do!

The last two weekends have been full of wonderfully low-key family days, and I couldn't enjoy anything more. We've done crafts together, attempted puzzles, read books, played Wii and returned to our weekly tradition of Pizza-Movie nights.

I love that the girls are enjoying games so much now. (Brian - awesome dad that he is - will sometimes pretend to like games too.) Sophie and Maddie got some really fun games this year like Hi Ho Cherry-O, Zingo Bingo & Sequence for Kids, that we have played almost every day. The puzzles have also been a hit. Some - like the cool sea life floor puzzle - were a success.

Others - like the 1000 piece puzzle of beer bottles from around the world - are going to require some serious dedication. (Those pieces are really small, and apparently all beers are either brown, green or gold! Uff!)

Anyway, it's been fun to spend time playing with the girls and listen to the ways that they play. They have a few favorite pretend games now that just crack me up:

* Mean brothers: No idea where this one came from, but Maddie loves to play mean brothers where... you guessed it, there are a couple of mean brothers that the girls have to stand up to or shoo away. The other day, Maddie scared them away with the pretend fire that was on her feet but didn't burn her.

* Pretend friends: Sophia now has her first official pretend friend. Her name is Emily and she lives in the tree behind our house. She is a person, but she has fur to keep her warm in the snow. She is one year and one day older than Sophia, so she just turned six. She seems quite nice, and I think we'll keep her around for awhile.

* Not to be outdone, Madelyn now has two pretend friends: Bow-a and Heart-y. (Because she has one Polly Pocket with a bow on her shirt and another Polly Pocket with a heart on her shirt.) Bow-a and Heart-y seem to do pretty much whatever Emily does.

* Lifeguarder: In the bath, Sophie likes to say that she is the "lifeguarder" keeping people safe in the pool.

* Besides these games, Sophie & Maddie spend every other waking moment doing art projects of some kind or another. Sophie practically lives at the easel she got from Grandma Mary & Grandpa Hans for Christmas. They paint, color, draw with markers and chalk, tape (they tape everything), and Sophie has even learned how to make snowflakes out of paper.

Last weekend we painted these pots and watering can and then planted little grass seeds. We're anxious for spring!!

Happy Birthday Sophia!

2010-01-04T05:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Sophia turned 5, and boy did that make Brian and I feel old. It cannot truly have been 1826 days since she was born. Now she is a smart, confident, kind, funny and caring little girl. (Although not so little - her legs just keep growing!)

We spent the day celebrating Sophia, and it was wonderful. We started with a '5' candle in her birthday breakfast request - coffee cake. Then to church where I relished the fact that she sits and colors or plays so quietly now. Then we went off to Sioux Falls to have her 5-year pictures taken and it was the fastest session we've ever had because, you know, Sophie's done this once or 15 times.

Then out for a birthday lunch at IHOP (awesome), and to Target where she got to pick out her birthday present from us. Not just any present though - one that shows she has truly moved from toddler-hood into her big girl days... a BOOSTER SEAT.

She couldn't have been more excited, and even said it was her high of the whole day. Of course, we actually have to wait until her checkup on Thursday to see if she's big enough. Most kids get to move into their booster seats at 4 years and 40 pounds, but Sophie's such a lightweight we're hoping she's finally hit that 40 pound mark at 5.

It was a wonderful day, and Brian and I again counted our blessings, as we have so many times over these last five years, for such a beautiful daughter, both inside and out! (And you too Madelyn! :)

Oh, and since I haven't posted since November - Hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings, Christmas's and New Year's!

Happy Halloween!

2009-11-02T04:52:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween!

Here are some shots of our Snow Angel and Puppy. They had a fantastic time carving pumpkins (although Sophia does not like touching that smushy stuff inside of the pumpkin!) and trick or treating. For the first time ever, both girls said "Trick or Treat" at every door and didn't hesitate a bit. It was a beautifully sunny day and we had a blast!

Brian and I even dressed up for my Mom & Randy's annual Halloween Party. In case you need some explanation, I'm a bag of Jelly Belly's, and Brian is Facebook. Get it... Face - Book. :)

And here's a quick catch up of the last two months since I've been so bad about posting lately... sorry!

August 27 - we began moving into our new home! Fifty-eight feet of semi-trailer was unloaded in just a few days by some hard-working folks! Thank you to all who helped!!

Sept 2 - Sophia began preschool at Orchard Drive. She loves it there and is growing and learning so much every day!

Sept. 7 - Our "little" Madelyn Grace turned 3!

Sept. 19 - Grandpa Hans comes to visit for the weekend! We had a great time hosting him in our new house, and the girls loved to put on Sophie & Maddie Shows for him at every opportunity!

Sept. 26 - Starting the fun painting in Sophie & Maddie's rooms. Sophie painted in all of her flowers and butterflies (I did the outlines), and she did the clouds and flower stems all by herself. Aunt Heidi helped write "Madelyn Grace" on Maddie's walls again, and the girls rooms are really starting to feel like home!

Oct. 9 - Looking for Oktoberfest in the Midwest (since that was an annual tradition in Leavenworth WA for us), we headed to New Ulm, MN for the weekend. We all knew Brian would love the beer, but who knew the girls would love the polka bands so much!

October 25 - Anja Arlene is confirmed! It was great to get to be here to help her celebrate!

October 28 - The girls get their first taste of "babysitting" when Evie Marie gets to come stay with us for a couple of hours. They both love it, but especially Sophie who at the end of the night said, "Who knew babysitting could be such hard work?" (We really just had to watch Evie be cute the whole time!)

So life just continues to plug along whether or not I update the blog. I'll try to be better about it from now!

We're starting to get very excited for our Thanksgiving trip to Washington! Let the packing begin!!

Almost there...

2009-08-24T17:29:00.000-07:00

We are soooo close. So close!

The house was a bustle today! Randy and his crew were finishing up the siding, soffet and fascia (that's the trim stuff along the roof line - no idea how to spell either word!) The carpet installers were there and got carpet laid throughout the house.

The duct work guy (does he have a title?) was there hooking up the furnace and A/C. The cement guys were there pouring the driveway and starting on the sidewalks. Apparently the plumber tried to come and get some work done but it was just too crowded!

It's amazing how things have come together in these last couple of weeks. And at this rate, we plan to be sleeping in our new home a week from today!! Woo hoo! (P.S. Don't forget the moving party on Saturday... :)

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Welcome Baby Evie!

We are so very excited to welcome Evie Marie Flittie as the girls' newest cousin. She arrived on August 10 to Laci and Brett, and she is so beautiful. Seriously - just beautiful. So petite and perfect. We've been to visit her and her parents (who act like old parenting pros, by the way) twice now, and it's so much fun to hold such a tiny baby. Both Sophie and Maddie are absolutely in love with Evie, and were so excited to hold her for the first time. Sophie just beamed with pride as she snuggled her. Maddie held as still as possible, and looked so grown up next to 7 pound Evie.

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Baby Evie makes me realize how big our baby is getting ... we're starting to plan her 3rd birthday party already which is unbelievable to me. But she is not quite all the way grown up yet. She still says the cutest things in the cutest ways. My favorite from the weekend: while playing "I Spy" in the car, Maddie said, "I pie some frees!" Which of course translates to "I spy some trees!" Gotta love the "f"s that continue to fill her vocabulary. I wouldn't change them for the world.

And our oldest - nearing 5 now (insert sentimental pause) - is excited for the back to school shopping we'll do this week. She is creative, smart and so articulate. We honestly couldn't ask for two better little girls.

Summer is flying!

2009-07-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

Even though it doesn't feel much like summer here - temps have rarely topped 80 degrees, while our friends and family in Washington are melting away in 100 degree temps without air conditioning - summer is definitely flying by. We haven't gotten to the pool and fun things like that as much as we'd hoped, but we have been busy.

In early July we made the journey back to Washington, our first trip back since we moved in January! It was a fantastic trip! We stayed with Brian's parents Hans and Mary, and the girls couldn't wait to see Grandma and Grandpa! They remembered right where all of their favorite things were in the house, and made themselves right to home.

Grandma Mary had set up a room for them in Grandpa Hans's den, complete with matching twin air mattresses. This was the first time the girls slept together in the same room, and they loved it.

The first night was a little tough at bedtime, when Sophie said that Maddie kept waking her up. And one morning we woke to Maddie crying, apparently because Sophie didn't want to wake up yet and was refusing to come with Maddie to find us. Other than that small issue, they did great... snuggling up with all of Grandma Mary's fuzzy blankets and cuddly stuffed animals.

We of course had a wonderful time hanging out at Hans & Mary's house and in their nearby park, and we also got to spend some time with Erika & Evan, eating mostly because that's one of our favorite things to do!

We also were able to see most of our friends once each. We headed over to our old neighbors the Stribling's house for a 4th of July BBQ, keeping up an annual tradition. Our good friends Melissa and Brandon were able to meet us for a leisurely breakfast and stroll around downtown Snohomish. Brian got to throw back a couple of cold ones with golfing buddy Steve. Hans and Mary babysat the girls one night while Brian and I headed down to Seattle to catch up with college friends Dave & Cory who were in town from Nashville and Arizona. And our old playgroup got together for a BBQ, where Sophie and Maddie reunited with all of their first friends. With everyone it seemed as though no time had passed, although all of the kids have grown up so much!

We love all of our friends and family in Washington so much. We thank you all for a fantastic trip, we miss you, and we can't wait to see you all again in November!!

Once we returned from Washington, we've moved full-gear into house building. The house went up so quickly, with walls emerging just a week or so after the foundation was poured. It was shingled before we knew it, and soon the house was overrun with plumbers, electricians and duct work guys (surely they have a name?). Things seemed to slow a little in the last couple of weeks, as our contractor (my stepdad Randy) is finding himself very busy. (A good place for a contractor to be in this recession!)

But now things are picking back up. The sheet rock is up, and the walls are being taped and textured as we speak. We've ordered our flooring and cabinetry. Next week will be our big painting week! If anyone is around and wants to do some painting, you are more than welcome to join us! Bri and I plan to be here every night next week starting Tuesday, while the girls are in VBS. There are 11 colors to choose from, so everyone can find something they like! :)

Randy expects us to be in the house by late August, which is perfect timing, because Brian's dad Hans will be coming out for a visit in mid-September. He's combining the trip with his 50-year High School Reunion in Minneapolis. Wow! We can't wait to have our very first house guest here!

In July we also celebrated my Grandparents' 60th anniversary, although their anniversary was actually in June. We gathered all of the Hammond's together for family pictures and a dinner out one night, and the next day we all went to the annual family picnic out at my great uncle Roger's farm. It was a great time, and I am so thankful for Grandma Bev and Grandpa Mick, and all that they have done to make our family what it is!

Finally, last weekend Brian and I took a 3-day trip out camping in the Black Hills - Custer State Park. It was a fantastic weekend, complete with golfing, hiking (Harney Peak, at 7,200 feet is the highest point east of the Rockies until you get to France. And it's in SoDak! Who knew?), campfires and smores. We paired up with my cousin Lane and his girlfriend Megan for the hike, and it was a great time. We could see four states from the top!

Cute things

A few quick cute stories:

Sophie has been taking gymnastic classes for the last eight weeks, and has done such a great job. In a class where many of the kids, understandably, are more interested in playing and running around, Sophie listens carefully to her teachers and we'll often see her in front of the mirror practicing her jumps or her landings. It's so cute! So when the session was ending, we asked Sophie if she would like to continue gymnastics in the fall. Surprisingly she said no. When we asked why, she said, "I just get too hot and sweaty." So we told her to think about it and we'd ask again. That night at bed time I asked her again if she would like to continue or try something else. Without a hesitation, she said, "I think I'd like to take golf lessons instead." So Bri is planning a few one-on-one trips to the driving range and the course with Sophie in the coming weeks. Like father, like daughter!

While Sophie never really went through the typical "Why?" stage, Madelyn seems to be entering it at full force. Of course, being Maddie, she can't follow exactly the typical toddler routine, so hers is the "What?" stage. Here's a conversation from the other night:

Maddie: Does Sophie have a bear like mine?

Me: Yes, she does.
Maddie: Where?

Me: In her room.

Maddie. In her room where?

Me: Along the wall.

Maddie: What wall?

Me: The wall with all of her animals.

Maddie: What wall with all of her animals?
Me: The wall by her nightlight.

Maddie: What wall with all of her animals by her nightlight?

You get the idea.

Maddie has also taken to singing, and at bedtime will sing goodnight songs to anything she sees. I have the cutest video tape of a couple that I will try to upload in the coming days, but the lyrics go something like:

"Go to sleep. Fishy cup. Because it's nighttime. And you need to close your eyes. Fishy cup."

May-June

2009-06-13T13:54:00.000-07:00

The house:

It's definitely time for a house update, don't you think? About a month and a half ago we made an offer on a lot on the southeast side of Brookings, with a view (about a block away) of the municipal golf course.

Since then things have moved quickly. The basement was dug (Sophie & Maddie helped with their little shovels) and the concrete poured. The girls saved little pieces of concrete, and we even were able to put their handprints in the foundation so although no one will ever see them we'll always know that this was our house!

Already the basement walls are up and windows are framed. We can tell where the girls' bedrooms are, and that is very exciting to all of us! We walk to our lot on a daily basis to check the progress, make sure Papa Randy is on task, and let the girls "help" where they can!

We've been busy picking out cabinets, flooring, windows, shingles... even door hinges. It's a lot of decisions, but so far it's still a lot of fun!

The girls:

Sophie has finished up with preschool for the year. On her last day we had a family potluck/picnic that was a lot of fun. We thought she'd really miss going to school over the summer, but so far she hasn't minded. She even told Brian one day, "I'm glad I'm not going to school right now. I like to stay home with my family!" That sure makes us feel good about Brian being home with them right now!

To keep Sophs busy during the summer we have her signed up for swimming lessons and gymnastics. She hopped right into gymnastics (literally) and loves showing us all of her tricks. We had been worried about how she would handle swimming lessons - her first without Brian or I in the water with her - but our anxieties were groundless. Although she is the only girl (besides the instructor) in a class full of boys about twice her size, she loves swimming! She trusts the teacher and is trying everything. She even dunked her head under water last week. On purpose! That's a first, and she was so proud. She has a hard time listening to the teacher, only because she is so focused on watching Bri and I watch her - making sure we aren't missing anything that we should be proud of!

Unfortunately for Maddie, she's just a bit too young for the classes we've signed Sophie up for. We're trying to take her to the public pool ourselves, to the park, out riding bikes, etc. to keep her busy. She's been very patient, letting her sister have all of the (organized) fun, although she does ask at least once a week when it will be her turn.

Madelyn knows that her birthday is coming (in September, but still!) and she's very excited to be three!

Visitors and trips:

It's been a month ago already, but Brian's sister Erika and her husband Evan came out in mid-May to visit us and run in the Brookings Marathon. We had a fantastic time catching up with them, and showing them around the metropolis of Brookings/Volga.
The girls made shirts to wear for the race, and cheered them on despite the 40 degree weather (at least it was sunny!) Poor Brian became terribly sick while there were here, so was pretty much a lump for the last part of their trip. But we had fun nonetheless (or at least everyone except Bri had fun... sorry honey!)

A couple weeks later the four of us went to Minneapolis for the weekend. We stayed at a hotel that the girls and I loved, and Brian really liked... or would have liked if we had been on the ground floor. Instead we were on the 5th floor, which doesn't sound too high, unless you are Brian... terribly afraid of heights... and the hotel has glass elevators and an open atrium that seems an endless, bottomless pit, that one of our girls will surely dive into at any minute. Or there may be an earthquake (it happens in Minnesota every, oh 400 years or so you know) and the floor will crumble beneath us. Poor guy. He had a lot of fun on that trip except for the journeys to and from our room.

Anyway, besides the hotel, we went to the St. Paul Children's Museum and played hard at Nickelodeon Universe in the Mall of America (an indoor amusement park). Sophie was just tall enough to go on her first rides, and she's quite a dare devil. She even went on the log ride twice. (For some reason apparently log rides aren't as scary to Brian as Embassy Suites elevators...) It was a great family weekend!

Today we went to the Volga Old Timers' Day parade. (Brian loves the names of festivals here... there's this one and then SDSU's homecoming weekend is called Hobo Days, in "honor" of the, well, hobos who used to come to Brookings via the railroad that goes through town. Come on, it's classy!) Anyway, this was the girls' first parade where they throw candy from the floats. They each brought along little purses to hold their candy and stood ready and waiting. I told them that if they waved, people would throw candy. Sophie took that advice to heart. Poor girl waved non-stop for an hour. She waved at the floats, at the tractors, at the horses, at the space in between the floats! I guess she did get a fair bit of candy though, so maybe it was worth the effort.

Now we are planning for our first trip back to Washington since the move!! We'll be back July 1-8, and we can't wait! The girls are already drawing pictures to take back to Grandma Mary and Grandpa Hans, and can't wait to show them all that they've learned in these last few months. We are so excited to get back to see all of our family and friends! I know the trip will go too quick, but we will try hard to squeeze every drop of fun, quality time out of that week!!

Photo update

2009-05-13T18:34:00.001-07:00

Since I can never seem to get online these days to write, I thought I'd better at least post some pictures.

We've had a pretty fun spring: Easter, trips to the zoo, a petting farm field trip (where Sophie was the only kid from the preschool able to hold the lamb!), swimming (both girls can swim on their own now with floaties!), and just fun playing together!

Of course the girls have come up with dozens of darling sayings and thoughts, but I can't remember many at the moment....

However, today after playing with Daddy & Madelyn at the park, Sophie said, "All that playing and running in the sun really worst me out!"

And one of Maddie's new isms' is "That is dooper-dooper big!"

In other news... Many of you have asked about my new job. Although I miss the girls terribly, I really love my new job. It's been three months already and I have already trained about 60 people, created and edited two entirely different newsletters, held a couple dozen webinars, and I'm in the process of helping to organize their safety program. I talk daily with people from all over the United States, Canada and Central America... sometimes even Geneva, Switzerland. I really enjoy my boss and all of my co-workers, and I don't know that I've ever worked at a job with such great employee morale. Everyone seems pretty happy to be there every day! Oh, and it's pretty cool to watch how they grow and test all of these different seeds... DNA extraction... GMOs... all sorts of things I know nothing about.

Brian is also really thriving in his new job of stay-at-home dad. He and the girls keep each other very busy and entertained. Of course now that the weather is getting nicer, that helps a lot too.

Oh, and one more thing to keep us a little busy... we are in the process of purchasing a lot on which to build a house! We close on Friday and they are scheduled to break ground on Monday! Only about 4,382 more decisions left to make before we move in, hopefully in September! Yay!

Oh, and one final note: Brian and I got to travel (without kiddos) to Omaha in early May for the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting - the Woodstock for Capitalists. It was so much fun and a life-long dream come true for Brian. Now, you'd think his favorite part would have been getting to see Warren Buffet playing bridge 10 feet away, but no... it was meeting his favorite CNBC reporter Becky Quick. He was so giddy after I took this picture, it was a little ridiculous. His hands wouldn't stop shaking as he tried to call his sister to tell her!

And speaking of Erika, we can't wait to see Erika & Evan who are coming to the happening town of Brookings this weekend to run the Brookings Marathon! We're so excited to see them, catch up in person, and cheer them on with the girls. While talking to herself in bed tonight Maddie started singing, "Yay, Erika and Evan coming. Yay, Erika and Evan coming..."

These are a few of my favorite things

2009-04-07T19:16:00.001-07:00

Some days it is really hard to believe that the girls are 4 and 2 (and both about half way to their next birthdays...), and some days it's even harder to believe how grown up they are for their ages. And some days they are just our little babies again. This is such a fabulous age, and we are trying hard to treasure every moment.

Sophie had a parent-teacher conference today at her new preschool in Brookings. Her teacher said (as did her teacher in Snohomish), that she is a very bright little girl who gets along well with everyone in the class, loves to participate and listens well to her teachers. Her teacher told us that Sophie could count to 20, at which point I had to mention that she'd actually counted to 70 in the car this week (with a little help at 50 and 60). She said she knew all of her colors, shapes and letters (at which point I found it hard not to point out that Maddie does too). And she said she was a delight to have in class. Brian and I were both so proud, again, of our little girl who can be such a big girl sometimes.

And lately I'm realizing how much Maddie is growing. She is taller and a little thinner, losing some of her baby chub (thankfully not all of it yet!). She talks all of the time. No seriously. ALL of the time. And this from the girl who, 10 months ago, we were worried that she might never talk at all! Sometimes she has a hard time getting her mouth to keep up with her mind. (We hear a lot of, "Did you know did you know did you know I did you know I did you know I can I can reach this?" etc.)

Maddie has also come up with what may be my favorite word of all time: "Lasterday." It means yesterday, or the day before, or last month. Whatever. Lasterday. I think Webster's should consider it for an entry in the 2010 edition.

I am also realizing lately the differences between child 1 and child 2. I knew, of course, that parents are more strict with diets for their first children (i.e. organic broccoli for #1, goldfish crackers for #2), and typically less worried about germs (i.e.disinfect toys weekly with #1, let #2 eat things off the floor). And I also know that any children after the first do not tend to have baby books, or if they do, only the first page is completed. Knowing that, I made a concerted effort to regularly update Madelyn's baby book, and I think I've done a pretty good job.

This week, however, I realized that I've never mentioned on the blog that Maddie is now fully potty trained and has been for more than a month now. With Sophie, I blogged daily for a week, updating the world on her potty progress. (I know that some of our single friends especially enjoyed that week of blogs!) But it really was much less of an effort with Maddie. She's wanted to be a big girl like Sophie for at least 6 months. One week of focused attention and a few extra loads of laundry later, she's potty trained. It's pretty great. The only trouble is that, during that week of focused attention, we often had her wear just panties so it was easier for her to remember to go to the toilet. (With pants on she seemed to think she was still in a diaper.) So now she wants to "get nakey" at least 3 times a day, whether it's 60 degrees or 6 outside. Crazy girl.

And Sophie - we've been just amazed lately with her progress in drawing, writing and building. She loves to make cards for birthdays and is now writing other peoples' names in addition to her own. Her E's tend to have 5 or 6 lines coming out from them, so those are always crowd pleasers. Today, Brian got a book from the library about how to draw butterflies, and what do you know - I came home to a really great picture of a butterfly. I could actually tell what it was without asking! And lately she just loves building. I swear she's going to be an architect with the way she builds and rebuilds houses for her dolls and animals. They have windows, doors, rooms, stairs... I don't know that I could do that! Of course if you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, the answer has been the same for the last couple of months: an airplane pilot. (That won't freak out her dad or her Grandma Mary! :)

They are both at such a great stage right now, playing so well together. For the most part they have great manners, and often say the sweetest things. Tonight, at bedtime I heard the favorite line of mothers everywhere, "Mommy, when I'm 29 I want to be just like you."

Lucky me.

Mr. Mom

2009-03-04T06:49:00.000-08:00

It's all a lie. For years men have been fed lines about how busy stay at home moms are. Oh the laundry. Oh the diapers. Oh the sleepless nights. Baloney.

As an experienced (1 week) stay at home dad, I can say we men have been fed one of the greatest lies of all time. This stuff is easy. So men, let's break our own glass ceilings and stay at home and send the wives into the workplace.

After sending Nichole off to her first day of her new job last Monday I tackled my day with vigor and ease. Four loads of laundry. Garbage cans all emptied. Kitchen cleaned. House vacuumed. Groceries. Potty trained Maddie. Two happy girls.

Tuesday Sophie started a new preschool. She gave us hugs goodbye and jumped in without hesitation. She headed off on a bowling field trip and I took Madelyn to story time at the library.

One of the perks of Nikky's new job is she is close enough to run home for lunches. Wednesday I had food waiting for her on her lunch hour. Sure, I just heated up some chicken noodle soup, but damn...I'm good.

Thursday saw another day at preschool. Sophie again handled it like a pro and I handily packed up backpacks, snacks, and cold weather clothes.

Friday we deserved a break and just stayed home. Hours of reading to the girls, artwork, and other fun activities filled our day.

Oh...and one more thing.....it's not that easy being a stay at home parent and I have new respect for all those stay at home moms.

Monday Nikky came home and started cooking dinner. Maddie's potty training? Well she's also Ms. Independent and decided to go herself and shut the door on me. 15 minutes later I checked on her and she had emptied the whole toilet paper roll in the toilet. I yelled for Nikky to come and clean it up and she informed me that I could do it as she was busy in the kitchen. I told her that I handled the kids from 6am to 6pm and now it was her turn to be the parent. Five minutes later I emerged from the bathroom with my head down, a bag full of wet tp, and the realization that maybe this wasn't so easy.

And I've lost all free time. It's very difficult to cram a day's worth of my own tasks and to do lists into about an hour nap time. I don't know how Nikky ever got any of her own chores done when the kids are there. ALWAYS there.

And it's a bit deafening at times. I SAID DEAFENING. So much so that some evenings when Nikky gets home I sneak out for a walk. For an hour. Just for the peace and quiet. Doesn't sound that big of deal? It's 10 below 0 while I'm doing it. For an hour. Before the windchill factor. I'm taking mild frostbite on my chin just to get some peace and quiet.

Showers used to be one of the highlights of my day. 15 to 20 minutes under scalding hot water to start my day. Now I'm lucky to get two minutes before the girls need something. Today's example:

Me: I'm going to get in the shower now. Maddie, do you need to go potty?
Maddie: Stares at me blankly
Me: I'm going to get in the shower now. Maddie, do you need to go potty?
Maddie: Stares at the TV blankly
Me: Maddie!!! DO YOU NEED TO GO POTTY????
Maddie: Not yet.
Me: Hop in the shower quickly. Put shampoo in.
Maddie: Trying to open the bathroom and screaming "I HAVE TO GO POTTY!! I HAVE TO GO POTTY!!!"
Me: Clumsily hop out of the shower dripping wet cursing at Maddie silently in my head and plop her on the toilet.
Maddie: "Why is the floor all wet?"

But by and large days are good staying home with them. We have our busy, chaotic days and we throw in a few days where we just stay in our PJ's. And the girls are being as sweet as ever. Maddie uses the word love in every other sentence.

Daddy, I looove you.
Daddy, know what? I loooooove you.
Daddy, I love your hair. (She's got low standards. Take a number 2 razor and shave your head and she'll love your hair too).

Sophie is just awesome at preschool. She's so grown up. And she's really taking to art too and doing well. She stays in the lines better than me. Her latest fascination is gymnastics. I got her a new swimsuit that she swears is for gymnastics. Invariably she emerges from nap time wearing either just the swimsuit or the swimsuit over the clothes she was wearing. Yesterday I found a monthly parent/child gymnastics class that I took her to and she loved it. Hung from bars, did backwards somersaults, and jumped on trampolines. Each weekend we are taking them swimming too and they are getting better at it. Sophie can go around the pool hanging on to the wall and Maddie is actually pretty good at swimming. She is very frustrated that we hold on to her and demands we let go. We bought some arm floaters last week that she is pretty adept at already.

Sophie Word of the Week:

It's more the question of the week. Her mind is growing and she is asking how EVERYTHING works and why things are the way they are.

Why are Grandma Mary and Grandpa Hans your parents?
Is God in heaven? Where is heaven?
Does Daisy have bones? Does she feel them?

Maddie Word of the Week:

I really really really want to go now.

We never mention where we are going for the day because that is always her next sentence.

Nikky: We're going to Grandma Bev's
Maddie: I really really really want to go now.

10 minutes later in the car about to pull into Bev's driveway

Maddie: I really really really want to go now.
Nikky: We're here!
Maddie: I really really really want to go now.

And with that, I really really really want to go now.

This post is brought to you by the letter W

2009-02-16T20:12:00.000-08:00

Still just a little more catch-up work to be done...

The trip

The trip from Washington to SoDak couldn't have gone much smoother, despite our many worries leading up to it. If you recall, Dec. and Jan. were weird weather months in Washington. We'd had tons of snow that stuck around longer than usual, and then in that first week of the new year, the rain started pouring down. The rain and the melt-off made travel difficult if not impossible. All eastbound routes out of Western Washington were closed, and to get from Seattle to Portland, one would have to take a 400-mile detour because I-5 was closed. My stepdad Randy managed to fly in without any problems, but we were worried about he and Brian being able to leave once the time came.

We studied our atlas without finding any alternative routes, and just hoped for the best. Sure enough, about 10 p.m. the night before we were supposed to leave, one eastbound mountain pass opened, so the boys and dogs headed out in the very full van and truck first thing in the morning. Shortly thereafter my friend Heather came with scones, coffee and hot cocoa to pick up us girls and take us to the airport.

Sophie and Maddie each had a backpack with toys and snacks, and they were such darling little travelers. We had prepped them on the airport security routine, and they did great - even waiting patiently in line while I had to go through the scanner a couple times because of a big zipper on my sweater! The escalators were a little daunting, but with some help from a fellow traveler who carried Maddie's car seat while I carried both girls, we made it! They ate, played and slept on the very bumpy flight (which they seemed to think was fun rather than scary or stomach-churning).

Brian and Randy, in the meantime, hauled butt through four and a half states, putting in a 16-hour day that first day! The dogs slept the whole ride, so were ready to play when they got to the hotel, leaving Brian with a pretty sleepless night and an early next morning. Somehow they managed to power through and came driving up to squeals of delight about 2:00 the next afternoon -- a full 6-8 hours earlier than we had even hoped for in the best conditions!

Haircuts

Shortly after we got here, the girls and I ventured down to Sioux Falls and Heidi's cosmetology school to get our hair cut. Sophie was fed up with her beautiful long locks that had recently turned so staticky and was sure she wanted it cut "like Maddie's." Neither Brian nor I were quite ready for her to go that short, so we compromised and came up with a 'do that suddenly made her look like a grown up little girl!

Maddie was just excited to get her bangs cut so she could see. She loved sitting up in the big chair with the cool cape, and very seriously watched Heidi's every move.

I loved getting to see my little sister in her element, doing something that she loves. It was a great day!

Mexico

About 11 days after we arrived, Brian and I stuffed the girls' pockets full of kisses and headed off to Mexico for 5 days of sun and relaxation! (If you haven't read "Take a Kiss to School" to your little one, we'd highly recommend it - it has helped so much with leaving Maddie without a fuss!!)

Our days there were basically the same: breakfast (outside or in our room), beach walk, boogie boarding, poolside, nap, dinner, drinks, bed... repeat! It was awesome and we couldn't have asked for a better time! We were in Nueva Vallarta (where we stayed last year), and it was 82 degrees every day! The beaches were endless (as were the food and drinks), the service outstanding, and I even got to really practice my Spanish a few times!

While we were soaking up the sun, Sophie and Maddie took turns staying first with Grandpa Rick & Grandma Karen for two days, then Great Grandparents Bev and Mick for one day, and three days with Grandma Lori and Papa Randy. Sophie at one point told us, "There are just so many grandmas here!" From all reports, they behaved wonderfully the whole time - full of "pleases and thank you's," sharing and taking turns, and enjoying every minute.

The only time Sophie was sad was the first night we left, when she told Grandma Lori that she needed to sleep with her blue jeans because that's where we'd put her kisses! We quickly "reminded" Grandma that we'd hidden kisses in suitcases, pillow cases and other pants too! :)

Settling in

Now we are back and are working on settling in to our real life here in South Dakota. It really hasn't felt like "real life" since neither Brian nor I have been working. We have thoroughly enjoyed this family time though, and have taken advantage of things like snow-tubing on weekday afternoons, visiting the local science center (which is awesome, by the way!!), and weekly story time at the library.

Next week things will change quite a bit however, because this morning I accepted a job! Now Brian will have a turn being a stay-at-home dad for a bit -- I'm not sure who's more nervous about the new arrangement, Brian or me! But I know that it will be good for all four of us. The girls will certainly enjoy getting Daddy all to themselves.

And speaking of Brian, here's wishing him a very happy 33rd birthday today! We love you Brian!!

Oh, and the letter W...

There are so many cute things that have transpired while I've been neglecting the blog, but Maddie's love of the letter W is definitely one to document. First of all, W is one of about 4 letters that she recognizes on a regular basis. Not sure why... we don't have any W names in our family or anything. But more importantly, the W sound crops up in so many unexpected ways in her vocabulary. For instance:

* "Can I have a wink of wawa from the wawa wountain?" (Can I have a drink of water from the water fountain?)

* "These are my weet." (These are my feet.)

* "One, two, wee, woh, wive..." (One, two, three, four, five...)

* And here's one that has stumped many who have tried to put Maddie to bed: "Can you weave my woe wacked?" That's right - "Can you leave my door cracked?"

Build the Bobber

Maddie and Sophie have been playing together exceptionally well in the last few months. Case in point, last week: Maddie wanted a baby bed from downstairs and asked if Sophie could help her. Sophie said, "Sure!" and off they went. I didn't see or hear them for a few minutes, and then all of the sudden I heard them singing in unison, "It's gonna work, team work! What's gonna work? Team work!" while carrying the bed up together. They had to stop at every stair to readjust, and it took them about 5 minutes, but together they carried that bed upstairs, singing the whole way.

Thinking my heart was going to burst with pride, I asked Sophie where she learned that beautiful song. She replied, "On TV. On Build the Bobber."

I mean really, can you get any cuter???

Birthday girl

2009-02-09T19:57:00.000-08:00

I don't feel terribly guilty about getting a post about Sophie's 4th birthday up a month late, because we really just finished celebrating it!

Sophie's been planning for her fourth birthday for at least five months now. Talking about what color cake she might like, what she might do and wear, and how everyone will sing to her. And once her birthday finally arrived, I don't think it let her down.

We started the day off with a birthday breakfast and presents from us. Sophie picked out her birthday hat, and I think it suited her quite well!

That afternoon we headed to the Mountlake Terrace Indoor Playground for her first-ever kid birthday party! Now, I had tried to talk Sophie into having her party at a bouncy house place or Build a Bear or something like that, but she insisted on the "play place" and it really couldn't have been much better.

It turned out that of everyone we invited, only those from our play group were able to come. But all of them were able to come. So we celebrated our daughter's 4th birthday alongside her her very first friends (and my first mom-friends) who we have seen every week since Sophs was 4 weeks old. It was a wonderful celebration of friendship and love, and an excellent way to get to say goodbye to a bunch of people very dear to our hearts! The kids played hard, enjoyed their homemade cupcakes (frosting colors mixed by Sophie and Maddie!), and had a great time.

My favorite part of the party was when Sophie's friend Owen found out it was time to go. He was the first to have to leave and started to cry. Sophie heard that he was leaving and knew that meant it was time for her to give out her party favor bags. She came running to Owen first, and gave O his bag and a hug. Owen, thinking she'd gotten this for him just because he was sad, said, "Mom, she's the nicest girl ever!" How sweet.

When asked what Sophie's favorite part of the day was, rather than jumping in the ball pit, getting presents, eating cupcakes, or any of those things, she said it was playing on the floor with Baby Kate and Baby Kaelin! :)

The next day we had Grandma Mary, Grandpa Hans, Aunt Erika, Uncle Evan and Great Huncle Jim over for a family birthday party (and a belated Christmas with Jim). Another excellent day of family, food, and fun! It was sweet to see both girls warm right up to Jim, and he delighted Sophie by getting her the most grown-up gift yet: perfume! (Which she wears almost every day - thank goodness it's a subtle, sweet scent! :)

It was a very fun day, but also a very sad one, as we said goodbye to the family we love and miss so much. The girls definitely understood that we were saying goodbye, and were very sad too. They know that it won't be too long though either, before we're back for a visit and can have so much fun again!

The following Tuesday, Sophie celebrated her birthday with her preschool class. It was also the class Christmas party since the first had been cancelled because of snow, and her farewell day! We absolutely loved Sophie's class and teachers there and miss them very much. Sophie sent them a valentine this week, and we actually just received a package full of valentines from them today! So sweet. Anyway, Sophie again loved wearing her birthday crown and got big goodbye hugs from all of her friends - even the boys!

A week later, Sophie was in South Dakota celebrating Christmas and her birthday with the Hammond's, and again loving being the center of attention on her birthday! Her final party was Feb. 1 with the Dahls and Bjorklunds. Nearly a full month of birthday celebrations! What 4-year-old wouldn't love that??

It's been amazing to watch how much Sophie really has grown. She was so polite and cute opening all of her presents and thanking each person for the fun gift. She'd stop to try on clothes, and loved counting money! :) We really couldn't have asked for a better birthday. Or six of them. Whatever.

Oh, and through all of this Madelyn was a wonderfully supportive sister. She would ask to help Sophie open presents and then proceed to pull off 1-inch squares at a time. And of course she made sure not a scrap of wrapping paper was left on the box. She's loved some of the gifts Sophie got, especially Polly Pockets and My Little Ponies!

She used to ask, "When it be my birthday?" But after we'd told her that her birthday is in September a few times, she started telling people, "It be my birthday on Saturday." Apparently those S's sound alike!

Christmas catch up

2009-02-07T13:24:00.000-08:00

Part 1 of our 2-month catch up series begins with Christmas. It seems ages ago already, but we were able to spend both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at the Berkenhoff's and had a wonderful time.

The girls loved getting all fancied up in their pretty Christmas dresses, and of course they loved all of the presents. Maddie also fell in love with Grandma Mary's snowman and spent quite a bit of time hanging out with him.

We had so much snow in Washington this year (and it lasted so much longer than usual) that Brian earned his Christmas dinner by shoveling off his parents' roof!

As usual we were thoroughly spoiled and very well-fed! Especially once Sophie started cooking in her new Easy Bake oven. Yum!

It was a wonderful Christmas!

Excuses

2009-02-02T21:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes. I know it's been a month and a half since I've posted. I fully intend to get you all caught up, because it's been a pretty eventful few weeks. But that's way too long of a blog for tonight, so I thought I'd start with my excuses (and a few cute pictures to tide you over). I promise there will be more soon.

1. The date of my last post was Dec. 24, so that means Christmas came swooping in with all of its busyness and fun. We had a wonderful time at Hans and Mary's - the girls are at such a fun age right now!

2. After Christmas comes New Years. We didn't have any fun plans, and didn't even make midnight, but still... it's a busy time of year. Plus we were still recovering from Christmas.

3. After New Year's comes Jan. 3 - Sophie's birthday! She turned 4 this year and absolutely loved being the birthday girl! With a Berkenhoff party at our house, a friend party at an indoor playground, birthday breakfast just the 4 of us, plus all of the present sorting and new-toy playing... there was no time for blogging.

4. After Sophie's birthday we started feverishly packing for our cross-country move. That was a project and a half.

5. Randy arrived Jan. 7, and we all left Washington Jan. 9. The girls and I flew (they couldn't have been better behaved), while the boys and dogs drove for 2 straight days.

6. Jan. 10 our laptop (not quite two years old) completely died on us. Like gone. Kaput. Finished. Sigh.

7. We ordered a new one online right away, but it didn't arrive until Jan. 21, but by that time Bri and I were in Mexico. (I know - poor us!)

8. The day after the new computer arrived in SoDak, Brian's Palm (aka his life, died in Mexico, so we had to order a new one of those immediately upon our return.

9. In the week since we've been back, poor Brian has spent 8-12 hours each day getting our data restored to our new computer and getting his new Blackberry synced with his old Palm.

So as you can see, all of my excuses are good ones. Fortunately, we've had lots of good stories we need to share in the meantime, and we've often said, "We need to remember that for the blog." I'll do my best in the coming days to post bits and pieces and get back to normal blogging... er, life.

Elf Dance

2008-12-24T13:33:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Away in a Manger

2008-12-22T12:30:00.000-08:00

Here's Madelyn's rendition of "Away in the Manger," her new favorite song. (Translation below. :)

In case you need some help with Maddie-speak, here are the words she actually sings. (She usually knows more than this, but it seems she got a little stage-fright until Sophie whispered her next line for her.)

(Missed the first line...Away in a manger)
No crib for a bed
Little Lord Jesus... fall... fall 'sleep on... hay.
(Stars) in sky look down where he lay
Little Lord Jesus asleep on hay.

(Missed the first line... The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes)
Little Lord Jesus no crying makes
Da da da (This is because I can't ever remember this line, so we sing da da da da da...)
And stay mine cradle 'til morning is mine.

Merry Christmas!

Oh Maddie

2008-12-18T21:05:00.000-08:00

Here's a real conversation from tonight's dinner table that I simply had to share:

First, let me set the scene: We've been sitting at the dinner table for about 4 minutes. Sophie, who must be going through a growth spurt that has her eating like crazy, has eaten nearly half her plate. (Amazing!) Maddie is telling us she doesn't like this, she doesn't like that... (it's usually the complete opposite.)

Me: Maddie, can you please eat?

Maddie: Me done. Please 'scuse. (And she promptly jumps down from her chair.)

Me: Maddie! Come back!

Maddie: (Hysterical giggles)

Me: Maddie. I'm going to count to three, and if you're not in your chair, you're going to the naughty place. 1, 2.... 3.

Brian: Um, I think she just ran to the naughty place.

Sure enough, Maddie had run to the corner and sat there. I figured I'd better set the timer, even though it didn't feel like much of a punishment. Sophie spends the two minutes of Maddie's absence telling us how if Maddie doesn't eat her cauliflower, then Sophie will eat Maddie's sugar cookie.)

Maddie returns to the table, and I feed her a bite of broccoli. Covered in cheese, mind you.

Maddie: Aaaggh! Me no like broc'li!

Me: Maddie! Yes you do. Please eat it.

Maddie: (Spits broccoli on floor and tells Salish to come eat it.)

Brian & I in unison: Maddie, no!!

Maddie: Salish eat it.

Brian: Maddie, you need to

Maddie: (Muttering something to herself)

Brian: Maddie, do you see how Sophie is listening to

Maddie: Me eat a bite!

Brian: LISTENING. Do you see how Sophie is listening to

Maddie: Me spinning in chair. (You guessed it, she's spinning in her chair.)

And yes. We gave up.

-------------------------------

In other news, we are blanketed in snow, and have been for nearly a week now. The girls of course are loving it. We've made three snowmen, complete with stick arms, carrot noses and button eyes. We've gone sledding in our yard as a family, and Brian even went out by himself last night when the world was about as white and peaceful as I've ever seen it. (We've had about 5 more inches fall since the picture of our bench and pond.)

On Wednesday, during a brief let-up, several of our friends came over for sledding, cocoa, and sugar cookie baking, and we had a great time. Sophie loves sledding. Can't get enough of it. Maddie, who is still learning how to walk in snow boots, prefers to make snowballs and snowmen. Of course we all like cocoa and sugar cookies.

Ages and stages

2008-12-08T14:01:00.000-08:00

Having two girls just 20 months apart makes for an interesting case study in the differences caused by temperament versus those due to age.

Just the other night, after a walk (too close to bedtime) to look at the neighborhood Christmas lights, Brian offered the girls an option: 1) take 1 jelly bean now and then get in PJs or 2) get in PJs quickly and then get 5 jelly beans. Without hesitation, Madelyn demanded her 1 jelly bean right now then happily got into her pajamas, while Sophie ran upstairs to get hers on and then get the bigger reward. It was amazing to both of us that Maddie didn't later demand the same amount as Sophie, and her choice was obviously because at 2 she can't see the point of delayed gratification.

However, Maddie is growing up more quickly than any of us realize sometimes, I think. Just six months ago, we were all fretting about whether or not Maddie would ever talk, but now she is speaking in sentences! I was so proud the other day that I called to report a 7-word sentence to Brian: "I did it with this wash cloth." The next day Brian calls from the other room to tell me Maddie said a 12-word sentence: "Me do it now now now now now now now now now." Impressive.

Madelyn is also becoming a bit less shy. On the day of Sophie's Thanksgiving program at school, Maddie and I spent the afternoon with Sophie's class, and our little 2-year-old, fit right in with those big 4-year-olds, so much so that the teachers hardly knew she wasn't one of theirs. Maddie ran on the playground with them, colored and explored with them, and of course, ate snack with them. (To which the teacher noted, "Wow, she has a great appetite!")

Sophie, to everyone's amazement, is also becoming quite adventurous and confident. I mean, she was always a crazy, loud, silly girl at home, but she used to become quite reserved around large groups; we always called her an "observer." Not any more!

Does anyone remember our Santa picture from last year? Two girls screaming with very red faces while Santa holds on for dear life and has a rather surprised look on his face? The one that the greeting card company wanted to use for holiday cards? Well, we made our annual trip to Santa just last week. Before we even left the house Maddie told me, "Me no like Santa." But Sophie insisted that he was a likable guy, and that Maddie had to tell him what she wanted for Christmas or she might not get it. I was surprised at Sophie's enthusiasm, but didn't want to count my smiles before the camera clicked.

We went to visit Santa with a couple of our playgroup friends, and when we asked who was going to sit on Santa's lap first, Sophie said she would! There was no line, so she ran right up to Santa, all excited, and stopped quick just as she got to him. I followed with Maddie clinging to my shoulder, and saw Sophie standing there like a deer in the headlights. Santa was talking to her, telling her what a pretty dress she had, etc. and he just picked her up and put her on his lap. No screaming. So far, so good!

Santa pointed to his helper friends who would take the picture and asked if Sophie could show them her beautiful smile. Well, she smiled, but it looked pretty forced to me. Santa, however, said it was lovely, and told Sophie to just keep smiling no matter what Maddie did. So I sat Maddie down (detaching myself in a 4-step process), ran to the camera and watched as they snapped a picture of Sophie and Santa with beautiful smiles, and Maddie looking like she was going to shatter some crystal with her screaming. I'll take it.

Afterwards, Sophie remembered that Maddie, in all her yelling, had forgotten to tell Santa what she wanted. So like the good big sister she is, Sophie returned to Santa, reminding him that she wanted a whistle, and her little sister Madelyn would like a camera please. So sweet!

Sophie had the same sort of excited-shy-brave transformation for her preschool's Christmas concert. (I say "concert," and it was for the older kids, but that word may be stretching it for Sophie's class. They sang the chorus to the first song and then most left to go home to bed. It was still cute though!) Anyway, Sophie had been practicing her "song" the week before the concert, but the day of she insisted that she didn't want to go. We didn't push the issue because... well, a night in sounded nice. But that day after school Sophie decided she wanted to go again (I think mostly so she could wear her new dress.)

Once at the gym, Sophie seemed a little overwhelmed by the number of kids and parents, but she sat with her class, wide-eyed and very quiet. She filed up to the front with her teachers and just kind of stared off into space. Once Brian and I were able to get her attention (we'd snuck to kneel in the very front because, come on, we had to have footage of this!), she smiled and then sung beautifully. It was a pretty big crowd there, and there is no chance that Sophie would have gotten up there just a few months ago. Needless to say, Brian and I were bursting our buttons with pride.

Have I mentioned too, what an amazing little artist Sophia is becoming? She loves to draw, cut, glue and paint. She loves to draw portraits of people, but just last week she stepped it up a notch by adding fingers to the hands (there weren't always hands either!) Her first picture accidentally had six fingers on one hand though, so she had to get out the scissors to do a little editing, because markers don't erase.

But back to our little Madelyn. Today as I dropped Sophie off at preschool, Maddie said, "Pick Sophia up 3 'clock?" She definitely is a little sponge, picking up everything we are saying and doing all of the time. One of my favorite words of hers of late is "ya," as in "I show it to ya?" Or when someone has an owie: "I kiss it for ya?"

Right now as I type, Maddie has two of the baby Jesus figurines from various nativities and is setting them up with the snowman and the Christmas teddy bear that she loves to play with. She's ringing the bell and singing, "Jingle, jingle, jingle." And then she asks them, "What do now?"

When did this baby become a little girl? And at what point do I have to stop calling Sophie a little girl and start calling her a big girl? I've loved every age and stage of these two, but they are simply going by too quickly!

Sophia's Thanksgiving Performance at Preschool!

2008-11-25T15:31:00.000-08:00

Check out our little girl giving her first public performance! If you can hang in there for the full minute (ok, it was 4 minutes on my first attempt and I've had to cut a lot to get it to upload!), you'll see Sophia leading off with the T in Thanksgiving (the best in the bunch if I do say so myself! :) and singing a song with her preschool class.

This school has made her so confident and less shy, Brian and I were simply amazed, and so very proud!

Happy Thanksgiving! I know that we sure have a lot to be thankful for this year!

Addendum

2008-11-24T20:43:00.000-08:00

Somehow I managed to forget in my last post to mention our all-time favorite new word of Maddie's: "yam."

No, she's not talking sweet potatoes; that's how she answers in the affirmative.

Me: Maddie, would you like something to eat?
Mad: Yam.

Brian: Maddie, do you want to take a bath?
Mad: Yam.

Sophie: Maddie, do you want to play?
Mad: Yam.

We also noticed another new word pop up just this evening: "ya." Now, instead of saying you, she's saying "ya." As in, "Me help ya?" Before we know it, she'll be talking in Instant-Messenger-speak. LOL.

Out of the mouths of babes

2008-11-24T14:12:00.001-08:00

Now that both of our girls are old enough to converse, Brian and I really enjoy hearing the thoughts and ideas they come up with. Sometimes funny, sometimes profound, often more grown-up than I'm ready for, their sayings are one of my favorite parts of our crazy life with two young girls. Here are a few that I can remember:

* Madelyn, always trying to copy her big sister, is learning to count, and playing hide-and-seek has definitely helped too. Usually when it's her turn to be "it," Maddie will cover her eyes and say, "1, 2, 5, 6, 16, 18. Ready. Here come!"

* And the cutest part of her counting is how many "w's" she inserts in the pronunciation: "one, two, fwee, fo, wive, sick, sewen..."

* Sophie really has her ABCs down now, with the exception of one letter. And get this - it's S - the first one she learned because of her name!. She always used to say, "... q r x t u v..." But since I've started correcting her, now she knows where s goes, but is often confused when she gets to the real x and will say, "q r s, t u v, w s y and z." Poor thing. Why do letters have to sound so much alike?

* Maddie also likes to sing a lot, and she's learned to improvise from her big sister. Whereas Sophie will make up songs about anything: a book, a doll, the wall, the light switch..., Maddie sticks to the songs she knows. A recent rendition of Jesus Loves Me went something like this: "Jesus love me. Bible tell me so. Little one girl. The end."

* In her highly independent stage right now, Maddie is often heard yelling things like, "Me do it!" But in the frustrations that usually accompany her independence, she's also started saying, "I can't." The first time she said it (trying to zip her backpack), it nearly broke my heart.

* Sophie has never gone through the "why" stage, and to tell the truth I didn't really miss it. Especially now that Maddie seems to have found that wonderful word. I didn't think she was old enough to start questioning us! (Because "why" always follows some kind of request or direction from Brian or I. Ugh.)

* If you're not catching on yet, Maddie is a little more... what's the word? Feisty? Challenging? Passionate? Loud? Headache-inducing?... than Sophie ever was. Now, whenever we give her a time warning like, "It's almost time to clean up," Maddie will instantly respond with a determined, "One mimute." The other day I told her she had two minutes left in the bath, to which she said, "Lot mimutes Mommy."

* It seems that I am coming up with far more Maddie-isms for this post, but Sophie has her moments too. Preschool seems to have really helped her overcome some of her shyness. The other day we went with our playgroup to the fire station. Most of the kids were having a great time, until it came time for the fireman to dress up in his full gear. Once he started putting on the mask and air tank, even our bravest boy was cuddling into his mom's arms. But not Sophie. She was the first to touch the mask, the first to demonstrate stop-drop-and-roll, and she had great fun "driving" the fire truck and turning on it's lights. Yay, Sophie!

* Sophia has also learned some great prays at her preschool, and she loves to say our dinnertime prayer. Sometimes she will recite one they've learned in school, sometimes she'll sing, and sometimes she'll make up her own prayer. The other night it went something like this, "Dear God, Thank you for this food and thank you for our family and thank you for my pants. Amen."

* Preschool has also encouraged Sophie's "leadership" skills. We've often called her a little dictator before (maybe that's just how big sisters roll), but now she loves to play teacher. The other day we found her standing on a stool, insisting that Maddie sit before her, and teaching Maddie some of the songs and prayers she's learned at school. "Now we do this Maddie. Now you say this Maddie. Maddie, sit down and listen to me!"

* Finally, as we approach the holidays and most kids are focused on Christmas and Santa, Sophia is waiting patiently for Jan. 3. That will be the day she turns 4, and oh boy is she excited! She already has plans for a purple cake, a party with friends, and all the fun new toys she's sure she'll get. Of course, every time Sophie tells us she wants a purple cake, Maddie is right behind her, demanding her own orange cake. It's hard to explain to a 2-year-old that she has more than nine months to wait...

Fabulous fall

2008-11-05T07:44:00.001-08:00

We really have had a fantastic fall this year. The girls are at such a fun age... learning new things all of the time, expressing themselves in new and often hilarious ways, and wanting to be a part of everything. Add in the gorgeous fall colors, the nice weather we've had (some days), and a couple of fun visitors (Amy and John this past weekend!) and you've got a pretty wonderful season.

Amy and John pulled in at 4 a.m. Thursday after a 12+ hour drive from Nevada. Amy was all hopped up on energy drinks, so we visited for a bit while Brian was waking and getting ready for work at that very dark hour.

While our guests slept in a bit, the girls and I headed out to Sophie's first parent-teacher conference for her preschool. Sophie showed her little sister all around her classroom while Mrs. Benjamin told me just how wonderfully Sophie is doing in school. Making me proud (and even tearing up once or twice), Mrs. B. said that Sophie is very caring and helpful with her classmates, an excellent sharer, a proficient counter and name-writer, and a willing participant in almost all classroom activities. Here's hoping this is just the first of many such conferences!

We returned home to find John serenading anyone who would listen with his guitar. He's really a gifted musician, and we enjoyed hearing some of the songs he's written. Sophie even got out her Rock 'n Bach guitar and jammed with him a few times!

Amy was getting some much-deserved sleep when we got home, but not for long! The girls didn't hesitate to wake her up so they could make the creepily delicious spider cupcakes she'd brought along. Maddie decided they were too messy for eating with hands, so she just shoved her whole face into one for a bite! Yum yum!

We spent some time showing Amy & John around our cute little town of Snohomish and the bustling big city of Seattle. But the highlight of the trip for me (except of course the time to visit and catch up with people I love) was Halloween! Sophie knew immediately when she woke up Friday morning that it was a special day, and Maddie didn't take long to catch on. They were both excited to lay down for their afternoon naps, knowing that when they woke it would be time for the fun to begin.

Sophie had decided early on that she wanted to be a monkey like she was last year, and the costume still fit so Brian and I thought that was an awesome idea. Maddie had thrown out several costume ideas, including elephant and bunny, but ultimately settled on puppy. Now both girls have been cute for every Halloween, but this puppy costume on Madelyn was my favorite. Complete with plenty of padding around the bum and belly, Madelyn's little waddle of a walk made her little tail wag everywhere she went!

Amy perfected their noses and Maddie's whiskers, the girls lit up their glow sticks, smiled kind of patiently for a few pictures and hit the streets. Our neighborhood is a fun one for trick-or-treating because some houses really go all out, but not in an overly scary way.

Madelyn insisted on walking most of the two hours we were out, and she tried hard to keep up with Sophia. Sophie however, was a monkey on a mission. There was no hesitation or shyness this year; Sophie ran up driveways to doors, knocked a couple times (or more if they didn't answer quickly enough), shouted her "trick-or-treats" and said "thank you" after almost every house. Maddie would say "trick-or-treat" sometimes, but when she was feeling too shy, we could usually get her to "woof" for her candy.

By the time we returned, Maddie was amazingly sweaty from her puppy gear, but ready to dig into her loot. The adults had no problem helping "sort" the candy, and the girls enjoyed answering the door until all of our candy was gone and it was bedtime.

Maddie woke up the next morning saying, "Halloween 'day?" Sorry Mads... only another 364 more days.

Halloween preview

2008-10-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

Our good friend Melissa came up this weekend to help us carve pumpkins, a tradition dating back to before we had kids and before she had her handsome husband Brandon.

The girls weren't really into digging out the seeds and of course couldn't help with the knife work, so they served a mainly supervisory role. Maddie would demonstrate the face she would like us to carve on the pumpkins, and Sophie spent most of her time with the hose, thoroughly washing every pumpkin (and the car and the driveway and...)

We had a great time, as we always do with Mel and Brandon, and it was a beautiful fall day so we enjoyed being outside. And I think we have some pretty awesome pumpkins to boot! (Maddie was napping by the time we finished, so that's why she's not in the group shots.)

Sophia WoW: "Practinacin'." Sophie likes to "practice" all sorts of things, but when she's currently working on a new task, it's always "practinacin'."

Madelyn WoW: "Mall one." Said in a high-pitched voice with hands clasped together, this indicates the size of Maddie's pumpkin of which she is so proud. She picked out a "'mall one." (Small one.)

Pumpkin time!

2008-10-17T14:13:00.001-07:00

First I would like to report that our pretend dentist office was a resounding success. Sophie did an awesome job at her real appointment. We were pleased to find out she doesn't have any cavities, but we were even more excited that there weren't any tears - even when the dentist came! Yay!

And now we're on to my favorite part of fall - pumpkin patch season. This week we got to play at the patch twice already, and we may go to another patch later so that Brian can join us too.

On Tuesday we went to The Farm in Snohomish with Sophie's preschool. She was super excited when she saw Mrs. Benjamin there, but promptly hid behind my leg when her teacher and friends said hello. Mrs. Benjamin was surprised at her shyness and said, "Sophia! I've never seen this side of you before!" What a wonderful thing to hear - that Sophie isn't shy at school!

On this first trip the kids got to run like mad through a hay maze in the barn. When they found their way to the top they could come back down on a very fast, and very bumpy, slide that dumped them in a pile of hay at the bottom.

After the barn it was off to the petting zoo where they tried not to get bit by ducks and pigs, and played with an overly-excited puppy and some very fuzzy kittens. We then washed hands and were off to the tractor for our hayride out to the pumpkin patch. The farm dog, a Basset Hound named Nellie, came along for the ride, and she made Maddie's day by choosing to sit by her.

The girls each found their perfect pumpkins (Sophia got a "really big" one and Maddie found a "really little" one, but really they were all about the same small size in the patch we were hunting in!) We ended the trip with an ice cream bar, which I thought was crazy considering it was about 52 degrees out, but the kids seemed to love them!

The very next day we headed back again with our play group. This time we got to swim in a bin of corn, play in a giant sand pit, ride tricycle tractors, and jump in a huge hay pile. After that we did the same routine with the animals and tractor ride. Maddie was pretty disappointed that Nellie the dog choose to go out to the patch with another group, but she quickly forgot once she got on the hunt for this day's perfect "little" pumpkin.

You just have to love this time of year: all of the beautiful colors, the crisp cool air, the simple pleasures of picking your very own pumpkin and proudly displaying it on your doorstep. When we got home the girls each washed up their own pumpkins with such love and care, I'm not certain that they are going to let me take a knife to it in a couple weeks, even if it is to put a cute face on it!

Sophia WoW: Mini-mom strikes again. This week we were all coloring together and Maddie was asking (read: demanding) in a very loud whiny voice for something that Sophie had. Sophie's response: "I'm sorry. I can't understand what you're saying in that voice."

Madelyn WoW: "Beau-ful." This week Madelyn has been describing everything from the shirt she's wearing to the pictures in a book to the mountains outside as "beau-ful beau-ful beau-ful." (In case I hadn't blogged about it before, Maddie says almost everything in triplicate, just to make sure you've heard her.)

Paging Drs. Berkenhoff

2008-10-07T20:36:00.000-07:00

Sophie has a dentist appointment coming up next week, and although her last appointment six months ago went very well, she became very nervous when I brought it up this time. (Nervous = running away from me crying...)

Last time both she and Maddie had an appointment, and Grandpa Rick was in town and accompanied us. He helped Sophie to be brave, and she did an awesome job with the hygienist but lost it when the dentist showed up. (He had the disadvantage of being a man I guess.) Anyway, I think that is the part she remembers - the holding down, prying mouth open, crying and fluoride-foaming-at-the-mouth part. Ugh.

So to help ease her into this next appointment, Brian had the fun idea of playing dentist at home! First we reminded her of all of the fun things this dentist had, and since it's a pediatric dentist office, the place is fun: TV monitors over every chair, cool character toothbrushes and toothpaste, fun sunglasses to wear during cleaning, etc. Then we gathered our tools and became dentists.

Sophie and Maddie couldn't wait! They put the crazy glasses on Daddy, strapped on a bib and set to work counting and cleaning his teeth. I reminded them of the water and suction thingies and we all had lots of fun making those noises. We rotated being doctors, hygienists and patients and had an awesome time! I think we may have inspired a couple of future dentists. (Come on Steve - I know you want to comment!)

Sophia WoW: "Ben." Sophie couldn't love her new preschool any more than she already does. She adores her teachers, has great fun each and every day, and now it seems she has a new boy friend. Whether or not we can combine that into one word, I'm not sure, but if you ask her anything about preschool she's sure to tell you about Ben. Ask where she learned to draw something - "Ben taught me." Ask what she did at recess - "Played with Ben." Sigh. I'm going to need to ask the teacher about this Ben kid.

Madelyn WoW: Sophie learned how to play Duck Duck Goose at school this week, so we played it at home just the four of us. Maddie thinks it's great fun, but she doesn't quite get a few of the finer points:
- She runs anytime anyone else gets up to run.

- She doesn't always come back to the circle.

- She doesn't like to be chased.

- And my favorite: when it's her turn to be it, she walks around the circle patting our heads and saying in turn, "Duck. Goose. Run 'way! Duck. Goose. Run 'way!"

Continued...

2008-10-02T14:07:00.000-07:00

While Madelyn is playing happily at my feet and Sophia is off at preschool, I thought I'd see how many more random thoughts I could squeeze into a blog post (can't be fewer than last time! :)

* Most people consider Sophia a quiet, gentle soul - and she often is. However she does have another, much more aggressive and loud side. At home and in the car she loves to shout out... I'm not sure what to call them... Cheers? Threats? Fighting words? None of those really does it. Anyway, here are a few of our favorites that she just yells out randomly in a loud deep voice:

"Cut it off Dad!"

"Knock it out!"

"Hit it up!"

And so on. They never really make sense but they are always said in good fun and encourage lots of fun shouting back and forth. Mainly between Sophie and Brian. Good times.

* Madelyn, whose vocabulary has grown about 500 percent in the last three months, is talking like such a little person now. A few of my recent favorites include:
-- While getting down from the dinner table, with her hand out like a stop sign: "Right back. Be right back."

-- Whenever she hears the words bed or nap, she will invariably start repeating over and over and over and... "Happy awake. Happy awake. Happy awake." Which means that she is happy and she doesn't want to go to bed. My favorite is when she cries "happy awake." Apparently she doesn't get the irony.

-- This is not to say that Maddie isn't sharp. She very often outwits us. One of her favorite sayings in the car is "Mommy up" to which I reply "I can't hold you in the car; we have to stay buckled." The other day she was repeating "Mommy up" over and over again, so Brian in frustration said, "Do you think you could get a new phrase Maddie." Her response: "Up Mommy." Touche!

* I'm including some pictures from our recent trip to Leavenworth. Although it was the last weekend in September, the temperature was in the 80s and we had a lovely day celebrating my and Brian's 7th anniversary. We played putt putt golf, enjoyed wonderful Bavarian food and Oktoberfest beers, shopped, jumped in bouncy houses and got our yearly fill of lederhosen sightings.

* Last week Sophie was very tired from a couple of late nights, and for the first time said that she didn't want to go to preschool. I took her anyway thinking she'd cheer up after she got there, only to be called 15 minutes later and told she had a fever. I brought her home and as the fever continued to climb took her to the clinic. Turns out she had a bladder infection. For a couple of days she fought a 103 degree fever and just laid in my arms. Finally the medicine kicked in and she felt much better, and that day I heard her telling Brian, "I didn't want to go to school and Mommy thought I was tired but really I was sick." Talk about knife through the heart!

* When Sophie was in co-op preschool last year, one of the things we talked about in parent ed was six-month cycles. Apparently through age six, kids go through 6-month cycles where everything goes really smoothly for them (hence they are happy, easy kids) and then they start struggle with new challenges and growths (hence they are challenging whiny kids). Lately it seems like my girls are going through daily swings and never at the same time. This morning even Sophie noticed, saying "This morning Maddie was so happy and I was grumpy. Now I'm happy and Maddie is grumpy!" Now if someone could just tell me why!!

* Last week Sophie grew tired of Maddie calling her "Sizzah," so Sophs worked to correct the problem. She coached Madelyn syllable by syllable and now (at least sometimes) Maddie will call her "So. Wea."

* Both of our girls enjoy songs and now that Maddie is talking more, she's also singing more. Lately you can hear her around the house singing "Jesus. Love. Me. Bible tell so." Could she be any cuter??

Sophia WoW: "Mine." One of the few remaining vestiges of toddlerhood, Sophie still uses mine instead of my, as in "Don't forget to bring mine baby."

Madelyn WoW: This week I was actually most impressed with a sentence Maddie put together all on her own. When we called to wish cousin Annika a happy 9th birthday, we handed Maddie the phone and she said, "Happy bir-day Aa-ka. Love lou. Maddie."

Bad blogger

2008-10-01T15:14:00.000-07:00

Ok, ok. I know I am very past due with a recent post. Although the girls are doing cute, fun and frustrating things all of the time, I've really been at a loss as to what I should write about. I don't have a lot of time left before the end of nap time, so we'll see how many random things I can come up with...

* Madelyn is in Little Gym now and loving it! She's in a class for 2-year-olds, so Sophia sits patiently on the sidelines with a book and blankie while Maddie hangs from bars, does forward rolls, walks the balance beam, and - her favorite - does bear crawls (walking with both hands on one bar and both feet on another parallel bar). The only trouble is that Maddie seems to have become the class punching bag. Last week one little boy (who I thought looked like a mini Brad Pitt) was near her and they were just checking each other out when Little GQ winds up and smacks her across the face. The dad was there in a flash telling the boy that was naughty and asking if Maddie was ok. Of course, shy girl that she is, Madelyn was much more upset that the dad tried to talk to her than the fact that she got hit. Later that same day, while the kids were catching bubbles the same little guy walked up to Maddie, smacked her across the face, grabbed her in a bear hug and started pulling her across the floor. Again the parents were right there and Maddie came running back to me. This time another little boy came up to her with a very concerned look on his face. I thought he was going to give her a hug when suddenly he up and whacks her too! I couldn't believe it!

Apparently the whole class got the message that Maddie is a target because today a third little boy hit her three times on the arm (not hard this time at least) before his mom could get there. I loved it today though because Maddie just stood there looking at him like, "What are you doing?" No tears, no yelling, no hitting back. She's tough stuff this one. But maybe we need to find a class with more girls.

And there it is... the end of nap time. I knew it wouldn't last long. I promise I'll try for more posts and pictures soon!!

Happy birthday Madelyn!

2008-09-10T16:54:00.001-07:00

Our baby is 2!

Maddie has come a long way from babyhood to toddlerhood in the last few months, and I think that 2 is going to be a good year for her!

She celebrated the day in style with us, Grandma Mary, Grandpa Hans, Aunt Erika, Uncle Evan and some of E&E's out-of-town friends, Kim, Dave, Aiden and Marley. It was a sunny warm day, filled with balloons, presents, cupcakes and ice cream. What more could a birthday girl ask for?

She'll tell (and show) anyone who will listen that she's 2, although it kind of comes out like "do!" and sometimes there are three fingers up rather than two.

Madelyn WoW: "Tak oo" - Thank you. This was the last vestige of her sign language until her birthday weekend rolled around. In the last few weeks, she's started saying everything, but "thank you" was the one thing she refused to say and would only sign (although she was quite willing to sign it anytime). Then, just in time for all of those gifts, she started saying it out of the blue, and without being asked. I think she's melted a few hearts with that one!

View from the top

2008-09-10T16:19:00.000-07:00

This past weekend Brian's parents came over to watch the girls for the whole day so that the two of us could officially call ourselves mountain climbers.

Mt. Pilchuck has been one of my favorite mountains to look at ever since we moved to Everett in 2001. It's a wide and dark mountain and one that is easy to pick out from a distance, and I couldn't help but wonder at its beauty ever time I drove the main road through Marysville for the four years we lived there.

Sometime this summer, Brian got it in his head that he wanted to climb it. Since the doctors told him no more running after he broke his hip in March, he's really taken to hiking, and he thought Mt. Pilchuck would make a good first-summit.

The trail is a very popular one, about six miles round-trip, and with about 2,200 feet of elevation gain. And when you get to the peak at 5,324 feet, there is a cool lookout where on a clear day you can see forever. There are benches inside and drawings labeling all of the dozens of other peaks you can see from there.

We set the date of the climb for this past Saturday and were excited to see a clear forecast for that day as we anticipated the climb. Our good friends Melissa and Brandon were able to join us, and we had much pre-climb help (and loaner backpacks) from good friends and experienced climbers, Brad & Sheila and Cory & Barry. We couldn't wait.

We left our house shortly after 8:00 and drove for just over an hour to the trailhead. Much to our dismay, the mountains were all clouded in and we could barely see the summit from there.

Nevertheless, we began our two-hour hike up the rocky trail, stopping now and then for breathers and snacks. It was fun to be able to hike with Mel and BJ, and I was proud of Brian for how well he did despite his hip injury earlier this spring.

As we hiked we continued to hope that the clouds would burn off because we'd heard the views were spectacular. But... sigh... they didn't. So rather than seeing something like this:

(a picture borrowed from another blogger)

We saw this.

Yup. Not much.

Of course, not all was lost. Partly because of the cloud cover, Brian who is usually quite afraid of heights was able to scramble over the enormous rocks that led to the lookout at the very peak. Since he couldn't see exactly how far down "down" was, he had no problem!

I thought the hike down was almost as difficult as the way up because you had to choose your steps so carefully through the rocky trail.

But we made it. We summitted a mountain and have pictures to prove it. Now we just have to climb a mountain with a view. (Bri's going to give Mt. Dickerman a try this weekend.)

First days of Preschool

2008-09-10T15:57:00.001-07:00

Last Thursday, Sophia officially became a big girl. (Pause for a moment of silence to recognize the passing of toddler-hood.)

You may be thinking, "But Sophie went to preschool last year, didn't she?" Yes. She's been going to preschool since she turned 3, but that was at a co-op preschool where I was never more than one room away.

Now, Maddie and I drop Sophia off at her classroom and leave. We drive away. And she stays there for three hours. I think it was the driving away part that really got to me, but I'm getting ahead of myself...

Ever since we began summer vacation, Sophie has been asking when she can go back to preschool. She loved her old class, her old teacher and her "old" friends, but she was very excited to try this new place that we had toured together and was so close to our house.

As fall got closer, she would talk about it more and more often, and we even had to draw a picture of a school on her calendar so she could know when she could finally start.

The fateful day arrived, and Sophie couldn't wait. I think it nearly killed her that she had to wait until after lunch to go. We took dozens of pictures in front of the house. With Maddie and alone. With backpack and without.

Once at the school she posed for pictures in front of the fence and in front of the playground, all smiles. Then we entered the building. She'd been there before to tour and for orientation, but of course it's a different thing when you know you are going to stay there alone.

She nearly had a meltdown when I tried to snap a picture in front of her classroom door, but we managed to hang on to sanity when I promised to put the camera away.

The three of us got her name tag, hung up her backpack, and toured around. Maddie thought the Legos were fun and got Sophie playing too. Then Sophie spotted the painting easel - one of her favorite places at her old school. Since there wasn't any paint there yet, I told her we'd have to ask the teacher if they would be painting later.

Of course Sophie hadn't yet said a word to her teacher (talked about her lots to Brian and I though, and seemed to like her), so Sophie insisted I ask about the paint. Mrs. Benjamin turned the situation to her advantage as only an excellent preschool teacher can:

Mrs. B: Sure we can paint, Sophie! What's your favorite color?
Sophia: (whispers) Red.

(My heart jumps - she talked to her teacher!!)

Mrs. B: Ok, well why don't you kiss your mom and your sister and tell them you'll see them at 3:00, and we'll go find the red paint together.

So she did! Sophie kissed us goodbye and went off to find the paint, never looking back! Maddie and I spied through the class window for a good five minutes before I could bring myself to drive away.

And then in the car, Maddie was the saddest of all. She kept asking for "Sizzah? Sizzah?" (which sounds like sister and is what she calls Sophia. And Salish for that matter! :) And the moment Maddie woke up from her nap, her first words were, "Sizzah done?"

Brian came home so we could all pick Sophie up together, and she proceeded to tell us about all the fun she'd had and all her new friends (one of whom is a Maddie - the only name she can remember!)

Yesterday she went again, and she was just as excited and even more ready to head off without us. Our little girl is growing up!

Sophia sentence of the week: When Brian picked her up from her second day of school, Sophia told him, "And I wasn't shy at all!"

Last weeks of summer

2008-09-02T14:44:00.000-07:00

Can it be that summer is truly over? Wow. We've had a busy couple of weeks, so let me do my best to catch you up to speed.

After Brian's ode to the best weekend ever, we had a fairly normal week, followed by a very hectic and not at all relaxing weekend. We had an open house that Sunday, so all day Saturday was spent sprucing up the house and yard - not an easy task with two toddlers and three dogs (we had our friend's dog Jack here for the week and although three dogs makes life a little crazy, he seems to keep our two dogs much more entertained while he's here!). Only two couples ended up coming to tour and we haven't heard any more from either, so no news on the moving front.

We had had grand plans of passing our Sunday afternoon when we couldn't be in our house (because of the open house) at the state fair. We've gone the last two years and had great fun checking out the animals and all the yummy fair food. This year, it rained. Since fall decided to start a couple weeks early in Washington, it's been mostly in the 60s and that day was no exception. The girls seemed to have as much fun jumping in puddles as they did wandering through the animal barns, so it wasn't a total waste. Although with $7 parking, $3 cotton candy and $4 face painting (which we had promised Sophia before we saw the price), the whole day left a little to be desired.

Last week was the official end of our summer, and we hoped to spend lots of time at parks and in our little pool in the backyard. Of course it rained instead so we went a little stir crazy and decided we were ready for the fall routine.

Before school starts though, we did squeeze in one last family getaway to Boise to meet cousins Amy and John who just relocated to fabulous West Wendover, Nevada. What, you haven't heard of it?

We had a wonderful time there catching up and enjoying the hot sunny weather. None of us had any idea that Boise - the city of trees - was such a beautiful place! One day after dinner we drove around and managed to find a bumpy gravel road that lead to a high bluff (I don't think it could actually be classified a mountain...) overlooking the city. Wow! We had tons of fun at the huge waterpark there; the girls played at the zoo while the boys snuck in a round of golf; we wandered a beautiful park with a fountain just asking to be splashed in; and of course we ate and drank just a little too much, as usual.

The girls warmed right up to both Amy and John and already miss them both terribly. So do Bri and I. :)

Now we're home and unpacked and ready to swing into fall. Tonight is the open house for Sophia's preschool, and she starts classes twice a week on Thursday. Madelyn will have her first Little Gym class tomorrow, and I'm hoping that will help us funnel some of her ... adventurous/clumsy nature... into something more useful than just bruises.

This Saturday Brian and I will attempt to climb to the top of Mt. Pilchuck - a 6-mile round-trip hike, with about 2200 feet of elevation gain. It is our first major hike and we can't wait. I'm sure there will be a blog post following.

And then before my muscles have had time to recover, Sunday we will celebrate Madelyn's 2nd birthday! In just the last few months she has truly transformed into a toddler. She is speaking in 3 and sometimes 4-word sentences and doing more and more things for herself all of the time. She still enjoys going potty like big sister, so who knows - when I have some time to focus we may even get that one checked off!

I need to figure out how to upload videos soon to show you some of the amazing and cute things the girls are doing lately. Until then, here is a "slideshow" of one of our favorite activities of late. As we were working with the girls to name feelings, they decided that they liked to show us the faces for those various feelings. Here is a sampling, and I'll let you guess the emotions:

Best Weekend Ever!!! (By Brian)

2008-08-16T18:41:00.000-07:00

I love my girls. Love them.

Going back to this Thursday, we had the best weekend ever.

Thursday I went to my buddy Steve's for lunch. It was one of those three-hour summer lunches that you just live for. I try to make it to his house every month or two to get caught up on the latest gossip, have some good food, drink some beers, and to feel a bit of testosterone in my female-dominated life. It was the perfect day: about 80 degrees, sitting on the deck, eating just past my comfort zone, and drinking beer. Can't beat times like that.

The evening I found myself at our dear friends Melissa and Brandon's apartment. I had never been there, but I will be back. It's one of those cute Queen Anne apartments with an INCREDIBLE view. We gathered for some Red Stripe and wine before heading down to the Seattle Center. Brandon and I picked up some Thai takeout while the girls raced ahead of us.

We settled at the epicenter of the park - a big crazy fountain that spouts out water with no rhyme or reason. Under the supervision of Nikky and Melissa the girls tentatively inched towards the fountain. To the delight of Brandon and I, the fountain determined its prey to be Melissa and Nikky. Thoroughly soaked, we munched on some food in the cool summer grass. We headed back to their apartment with some tired girls. For those who don't know the Queen Anne neighborhood - it is very hilly. Walking from the Space Needle to the top of Queen Anne is akin to walking from Earth to the Moon. Lucky for me - Sophie wanted to be carried. Lucky for Brandon, Maddie did too.

Surviving the heat stroke, we headed back for some ice cream and conversation. The moon was out and Seattle was in all her glory. Brandon surprised us with a concoction of Kahlua, ice cream, peaches and chocolate. Not wanting the evening to end, we headed to Kerry Park for some drop-dead gorgeous views of the Space Needle. The girls gabbered about their buddies Mel and Brandon all the way home.

Friday came early. Going to bed at 11 and waking up at 4 will do that to you. A quick day of work ensued. I killed a lunch hour by grabbing a slice of pizza with my sister Erika and watching a foreclosure auction. You don't have to do much to entertain a CFA. Nichole picked me up and we scrambled up to Sedro Woolley to sign our closing papers for our lake property. After 8 months on the market it got two bids in one day, and we were reluctantly excited to put this chapter of our lives behind us. Because Nikky will pass up no opportunity to eat out, we celebrated with a dinner at the Olive Garden. Once again, our girls won the cutest-in-the-restaurant award wearing their shades and looking every bit like miniature Yoko Onos. The girls headed to bed early and Nichole and I had one of those perfect summer evenings - sitting on our deck, drinking beers, playing poker, and having a rare uninterrupted adult conversation.

Despite my vows to sleep in on Saturday, I woke up at 6 am. I've found the cooking bug lately, and I had put some oatmeal in the crock pot the night before. I arose about a half hour after Sophia, and the girls and I headed downstairs to put together toppings for the food - fresh strawberries, maple syrup, brown sugar and cranberries. Sophie invited us up to her bed to lay and play after breakfast, and we found ourselves completely lethargic.

Eventually, we escaped our food comatose and decided to head out for a little hike. We headed just south of Snohomish to the Heirman Preserve. A bunny greeted us and was quite friendly - hopping around our van and never once running away. We took about a 2 mile hike through some thick brush along the Snohomish River. We took the advice of a friendly hiker and crawled about 40 yards through some blackberry bushes and found our way to a secluded, private, perfectly sandy beach. Shirts came off, shoes were kicked aside, and we waded into the Snohomish River. It took a full 3 minutes before Maddie fell in. Completely. She emerged drenched - between her tank top, shorts, and diaper the water had doubled her body weight. We quickly dried off and headed back to the van. We stopped by home for a quick change of clothes before running off for some errands. Nikky and I found some new hiking boots (we are hiking Mount Pilchuck in a few weeks where there is still some snow) and then hit Baskin Robbins for a little ice cream relief.

Back at home I mowed while Nik got the girls to a much needed nap. We spent some time out in the kiddie pool in the afternoon. I cooked a pizza from scratch and the girls took some delight in adding their own toppings. Now as I type the girls are watching The Land Before Time. Maddie is handing me my open beer and the next one saying "2! 2!" Yes Maddie - Daddy has 2 beers tonight. Thank goodness she can't count to 6!

Tomorrow we have our usual Sunday dinner with the family. Feeling the need for sanity I may steal some me-time in the morning by heading up in to the mountains for a hike by myself.

Now for some random musings:

At bedtime Sophia is a chatterbox. She asks so many questions that we imposed a rule - when we lay with her in bed she gets to ask 3 questions. That stage has passed and now she lets me ask 3 questions. The other night I asked her why she was so pretty. She said that's how God made her.

From the not so sanitary department - we let them pee in the grass. Not all the time. Just when we are lazy. It all started on our road trip to South Dakota when we had no choice and had to stop along the freeway in the middle of nowhere. Today while they were kiddie poolside - Maddie ran to pee in the grass. She squats down as only children can manage - bum an inch from the ground, knees bent at 270 degrees - and holds that position for 20 minutes!!! Her leg muscles never cease to impress me. Sophie ran out of the pool and peed in the grass. After she finished she jumped up and down and did a pee cheer. Maddie then ran out and tried to copy her and let out a fart that people in Oregon could hear. Then she fell down.

I used to be so paranoid of Madelyn. I mean - the girl is ACCIDENT PRONE. She breaks a collarbone. She rips skin off her forehead. Owie was one of her first words. And she doesn't stop - it's just a vicious circle. But I'm getting to be at peace with it - because I think she revels in it. I think she secretly likes to get hurt. It's a high she keeps chasing. Today she's jumping in the pool. She slips hard. Then she smirks, gets up, and does it again. Repeat. Each time harder. I mean - I hear her falling. It's got to hurt. And she keeps doing it. And she's laughing!

While in their kiddie pool today (naked), I'm sitting and drinking some beers with our outside speaker blasting some KZOK - classic rock. Supertramp comes on - Not Much of a Girlfriend. Sophie exits the pool, and starts dancing HARD. I love that my daughter dances to Supertramp.

Salish has taken one of our big wide bushes in the bark and turned it into her bed. It was one of the bushiest bushes we had, but now it's dead and flat as a pancake. The most prickly looking bush you can imagine and she curls up in it in the sun. She's totally at peace there. I love her!

It's 90 degrees out. Salish is seeking out the shade, laying in the kiddie pool, doing anything to survive. Daisy seeks her out and snuggles as tight as she can to her - in doing so doubling their body heat. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, or the coolest.

Nikky's cousin Amy and her husband John moved to Nevada recently. A 12 hour drive away, it is too far for the girls to do in one day. So feeling bored yesterday I suggested a road trip to Boise, Idaho over Labor Day. Nikky took the bait and we will spend that weekend catching up with some of our favorite people in the world. And we cut it down to an 8 hour drive.

Maddie WOW: "Ohno" It's oh, no combined in two 2 quick syllables. Said with the intensity of someone announcing the end of the world.

We found a wood puzzle piece that Salish had chewed on 3 years ago.

"Ohno Ohno Daisy??"
"No Salish ate that"
"No No Daisy"

I must say that words of the week for Maddie are so tough to pick. 2 months ago she knew about 20 words. With vigilant reading sessions every night she's up to about 100 words and taking on about 5 new ones a day.

Sophia WOW: "Check out my cute bum"

She has taken to grabbing on to a counter or wall, sticking her butt out, and saying "check out my cute bum!" I can't argue with her.

Conversations

2008-07-30T21:07:00.000-07:00

Since the push a few weeks ago to help Madelyn learn new words, it seems we have entered a whole new world. Not only is Maddie repeating things we teach her, she's now picking up new words on her own and babbling constantly in a way she has never done, even as a baby!

With two talking girls, now Brian and I are often finding ourselves in the middle of (or evesdropping on) very interesting conversations...

For example, Sophia loves to teach Madelyn anything but especially how to spell. A typical conversation in the car goes something like this:

Sophie: Maddie, can you spell "stop"? Say S

Maddie: Esss

Sophie: T

Maddie: T

Sophie: O

Maddie: ooooo

Sophie: P!

Maddie: P!

Sophie: Now spell bird: A. W. P. O. S. M.

However, some things are just too ingrained in Maddie's vocabulary for her to change. The other day while reading a book about animals she and I had the following conversation:

Me: Maddie, can you say "cow"?

Maddie: Moo.

Me: Ca, ca cow.

Maddie: Ca ca moo.

And some conversations you really wish that the video camera was there (or in our case, had charged batteries!) Here's one from the breakfast table the other day:

Sophie: Hey Maddie! Can you say Sophia?
Maddie: Mommy!

Sophie: I'm Sophia!

Maddie: Mommy! (giggle hysterically)

Sophie: I'm Sophia!
Maddie: Mommy! (giggle hysterically)
Sophie: I'm Sophia!

Maddie: Mommy! (giggle hysterically)
Sophie: I'm Sophia!

Of course, Sophia's conversations with us are much more grown up. She is always surprising us with what she picks up and the things she remembers. She asks wonderful questions and is a very astute observer. Most of the time she is kind, gentle, empathetic, motherly, and silly. The other day when Madelyn was being particularly difficult, she patted my knee and said, "I'm sorry Maddie is not being nice to you Mommy," without any judgement of Maddie - just concern for me.

Yesterday she gave Brian a little scare at the dinner table with her train of thoughts!

Sophia: Daddy! Did you know that Maddie is a big girl now?

Brian: Really?
Sophia: Yes! She is too big for her booster seat so we put it in the garage for our next baby!
Brian: What?!

Sophia: So when we have a new baby when I'm 5 or 6 the new baby can use Maddie's booster seat!

(Note: None of this conversation came from anything Bri or I had told her - this is all Sophie!)

While Maddie's conversations aren't always so... verbose, she is able to communicate quite a bit with her limited vocabulary. Here's a routine we go through at least once a day:

Maddie: (Having just dropped some food) Oh!
Me/Brian: Oops. Did you drop some food?

Maddie: Bbbrrr!

Me/Brian: Yes, we'll just leave it for the birds. (Or, No, the birds don't often come in our house to eat off the floor.)

Maddie: Mo?

Me/Brian: No, I don't think the birds need you to drop any more food.

It is amazing the things you can interpret from one syllable. Of course, it's not always quite that easy...

Maddie: Aa-bo.

Me: What?

Maddie: Aa-bo.

Me: What?

Maddie: Aa-bo!

Me: You want an apple?

Maddie: (shoving her elbow in my face) Aa-Bo!

Me: Oh! Elbow!

Sophia WoW: "Smoogly." Silly Putty.

When we drove to South Dakota in May, I had gotten Silly Putty for the girls to play with in the car. They both loved it, but Sophia could never remember the name, so she came up with Smoogly. I love it so much that I can't force myself to correct her.

Madelyn WoW: "Poppy." Potty. Maddie is still using the potty on and off, although she asks to go more often than she actually does. Everytime she wants to go, it's "Poppy! Poppy! Poppy!"

The best of Washington

2008-07-28T20:10:00.000-07:00

This weekend, in an effort to keep the girls out of the house (and therefore keep the house clean) for our open house, Brian thought it would be fun to go on a hike. We're trying our best to take full advantage of all the things we love about the Pacific Northwest before we leave, and hikes and the incredible scenery Washington always has to offer rank high on our list.

Despite some difficulties getting there (i.e. Maddie screamed the whole drive), and a few troubles along the trail (i.e. Sophia decided half-way through she's too tired to walk anymore) we had a really fun day.

The hike was an easy one that followed the Stillaguamish River for just over two miles. I carried Madelyn in the backpack most of the way (except when I had to lug Sophie in it to rest her legs for a bit) and Brian walked both dogs (who were not on their best behavior that day!)

We saw a doe and fawns and hundreds of beautiful wildflowers. The girls loved the "tunnels" created by the trees. And we had all kinds of fun playing in the river. Sophie and Maddie threw rocks, Salish chased sticks, and Daisy chased Salish.

This was actually Daisy's first time in any large body of water, and she seemed to really enjoy it. She didn't swim like Salish (which was probably good since the river had a fairly fast current) but she romped and splashed and had a grand time. (So much so that I had to chase her 50 yards downriver to get her back on her leash.)

After the hike we had a picnic lunch - our new favorite way to eat as a family - and enjoyed fresh fruit and yummy treats, finishing just as the rain started falling.

Madelyn slept hard on the way home while Sophia jabbered about this and that. The dogs zonked out after playing so hard. Brian and I enjoyed the relative peace and were grateful for all that we have.

Sophia WoW: "Can I just tell you something?!" This is Sophie's new stall tactic when she doesn't want Maddie to use one of her toys. Sophie will cover the toy with her body and say over and over, "Maddie! Can I just tell you something?!" while Maddie yells for the toy. Yesterday after listening to this exchange for a couple minutes I said, "Sophie, just tell her what you want to say!" Silence.

Madelyn WoW: "Gol-E-gols" This word is said fast and often repeated over and over, and it means goggles (like the kind you use in swimming). The girls have a pair that they use in the bath, and Madelyn also seems to think this is the word for glasses. It's also very similar to a couple of her favorite names: Erika (Ah-hee-ka) and Annika (Addaka).

Bruiser

2008-07-21T16:51:00.001-07:00

We've always known that Madelyn was more of a bruiser than Sophia, but I never really guessed that she would have gone this far, this soon. She's not yet two, but she's already required two sets of X-rays, the latest of which revealed a broken collarbone.

We're not quite sure how it happened, but sometime early last week, Maddie must have fallen just right (or just wrong, as the case may be) and managed to fracture her clavicle.

We knew something was wrong when she woke Tuesday morning screaming (even louder than usual) and saying "Owie, owie, owie, owie." When asked where the owie was, she would hold her throat. So I thought she had a really sore throat and we were heading for a nasty summer cold.

But as the morning progressed, I noticed that she would cry every time I picked her up, and she started bending away from me, even while begging "up, up, up." This pain scared me a little, so I took her into the walk-in clinic by 10 a.m. The doctor there was very nice but very confused. She was hesitant to run various tests because she said the symptoms weren't adding up to anything. She gave me some things to watch for and told me to call if she started throwing up or became lethargic. She even said at one point it could be a kidney infection.

We cuddled the rest of that day, and by that night I could tell it was something other than a cold. She has had what's called "nursemaid's elbow" before, which is when a ligament in the elbow gets out of place and then aches for awhile after it pops back in. When that happened last time (in the same arm that seemed to be hurting now), we just continued to be careful with her arm while encouraging her to use it for eating, etc., and after a couple days she was fine. (That first time she told us the pain was in her wrist, so I just figured she was a 22-month-old not accurately describing the pain again.)

So we went berry picking and played with friends on Wednesday and Thursday, but by Thursday night we could tell the arm was getting worse rather than better.

We took her in first thing Friday morning, got the same doctor, and this time the symptoms were all clear: broken collarbone. Ugh.

So not only did I feel like an awful mama for letting her break a bone in the first place, but now I'd let her go four days without realizing it was broken! Poor thing!

The doctor said this is common and will heal fast since her bones are still growing so fast. They gave us an extra-small sling, which is still too big for her, as an option for her to wear. The doctor said the sling is more for us and other playmates to help remember to be gentle with her, and that without the sling Maddie would instinctively protect her arm and hold it in the correct place for it to heal.

We're just supposed to be careful with her, encourage her to be careful, and return in four weeks for a follow-up X-ray.

Maddie seems much better now that we know how to handle the injury. She's using her arm more than I thought she would, but she's still preferring her left hand for most tasks. She's happy and playing, and, of course, falling as usual.

Sophia SoW: Brian's insisting that I tell a Sophie Story of the Week rather than a Word of the Week: On our way to a friend's birthday BBQ yesterday, Sophia was telling us she couldn't wait to play with a friend Rachael. Then she surprised us with this statement, "Did you know we have three Rachaels? One is our Rachel, one is Ally's Rachael, and one is the Rachael on TV."

The first one is of course my cousin Rachel, the second is her friend/babysitter Alexandra's friend Rachael - the one she couldn't wait to play with, and the third... Rachael Ray. What can I say? By 3:00 in the afternoon I'm tired and sometimes we just have to sit and watch her make something sure to be yummier than what we're going to have for supper!

Madelyn WoW: Maddie has so many new words lately that it is hard to decide, so here are three of my favorites:

- "Oppa duce" (Apple juice - notice that is a two-word phrase!!!)

- "He mama" (Here mama)

- When I ask her to spell her name with me, she repeats every letter in the cutest possible voice:

M - "em"

a - "eye-a"

d - "dee"

e - "ee"

l - "ella"

y - "wowie"

n - "en"

Whoa Baby!

2008-07-14T11:40:00.000-07:00

I realize that I'm a hypocrite. On the one hand, I push Madelyn to learn and grow and generally become a big girl, and on the other hand I want her to stay my little baby. This past week has been a great example.

Last week was the "Week of Rules" in our house. In an effort to make Maddie more independent, less crabby and clingy, and reduce her need to scream at us, Brian and I instituted several rules. They included:

1. When we know Maddie can say a word, we insisted that she use it (rather than "eh eh"). So if she wanted milk, she had to say "mak;" if she wanted up, she had to say "up;" and usually our most challenging problem, if she wanted to eat, she needed to say "eat" (which was a new word this week! Yay!)

2. To help foster #1 and teach Maddie new words, we have been reading constantly. We talk in the car and try new words all of the time, and her vocabulary has at least doubled in the last week. She likes to repeat the ABCs and practice counting, and she's willing to try almost any new word. We've even heard a couple of two-word phrases including "hup peas" (help please) and "goo goo" (good girl - to Daisy & Salish). Sophie of course loves to help Maddie try new words.

3. To help reduce her constant demand for food, we started a more regular schedule of three mealtimes and three snacktimes. This has been a huge help.

4. Besides eating, our other major struggle with Maddie has been her need for attention, especially when Brian and I are trying to carry on a conversation. So, perhaps the hardest rule to enforce: if Madelyn insisted on screaming while Brian and I were talking, she had to go to the "naughty place" after one warning. This seems to have helped some, but I find myself offering way more than one warning and trying to talk over the yelling.

5. Sleeping time: Maddie has been waking up by 5:30 (often earlier) since we got back from South Dakota. This past week I've been making her stay in bed until 6, because seriously... 5:30 is too early! (Especially when she's falling asleep in the car at 9:30 because she's obviously so tired!) This is kind of working, but it is hard because Maddie has never, ever, woken up and just played in bed or happily said, "Ma!" She has always woken up screaming and continues to yell until someone gets her. In the mornings now though she sometimes falls back asleep for 15-20 minutes, and hopefully one day she'll get the idea and just stay asleep until 6. If anyone has any ideas on how to make her wake up happy, I'm all ears!

6. After Madelyn learned the word "up," I'm a bit ashamed to say I changed the rules on her mid-week. The girls and I had a long talk about how there are two girls and only one mommy, so no one is going to be carried any more. For some reason, it had become acceptable for me to carry both girls at once, and they are simply too big for that. So despite many, many requests for "up peas," I offer my hand or a hug, and try my best to keep both girls' feet on the ground.

So you'd think our house was no fun last week with all of these rules, but several of them were actually huge helps. The girls both love books, and we hadn't been reading as much lately as we used to, so it's fun to spend some serious time with some of our favorite books. And it has been wonderful to hear Maddie speaking. Her voice is so beautiful when she's not yelling! And now we know what we have long thought - that Maddie could talk if she really wanted to. She's just so smart, she was getting everything she needed with "eh eh." She still reverts to this often, but with one reminder she'll say the word!

And removing the food issue has made a world of difference. I don't know how this became such an issue for her, and I hope it doesn't follow her into her teens and adulthood! :) Hopefully this week has helped nip that in the bud.

So anyway, we spent the week helping turn Maddie into a big girl, and then yesterday while she was playing in the kiddie pool outside (naked of course) I suddenly realized that she was asking to use the toilet. Wait. What?!?

Flabbergasted, I took her in, just to see what would happen. She peed in the toilet. Last night she tried two more times, and I figured it was just a quickly-passing, naked fad. Then this morning when she was eating breakfast she asked again. I took off her diaper, and she went again.

(I can't really describe how she tells me she needs to go. It's more in the body language than in any word I can recognize.) But I'm simply not ready to potty train again. My mom tells me I'm crazy, and that I'll be kicking myself if I let this opportunity slip by. But I'm not mentally or physically prepared to potty train a 20-month old. I don't want to get the little chair out while our house is on the market, and I'm not ready to make a real, concentrated effort. So I guess I'll just let her tell me when she wants to try and see where this goes. It gets tiring when she wants to try 3 times in 10 minutes though...

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And since I missed last week's blog, here's a quick photo recap:

The Fourth of July was a wonderful day, spent berry-picking and BBQing with our dear friends the Striblings. They are such good friends, that even our dogs are best friends with their dogs. After doing some small fireworks at their house, we headed up to Lake Tyee for a wonderfully relaxing weekend, just the six of us (dogs too).

It wasn't as warm as we would have liked, but we kept a fire going and the girls thought roasted marshmallows and smores were the best ideas ever. Sophia had great fun waging water wars, mostly against Daddy, but sometimes hitting Maddie and I (and soaking herself in the process).

And I guess Maddie isn't the only one to surprise us with advances. The other day Sophie yelled from the den, "Hey Mommy. Come look. I wrote my name."

Expecting to see scribbles as usual, I almost cried when I saw a perfectly clear "s o " on the page. I asked her if she could write the rest, and she did! (Almost.) I asked if she had taught herself that, and she said, "No. Grandma Mary taught me how!" Apparently a week earlier when Hans and Mary had babysat for my birthday, Mary had drawn her name with Sophie on a doodlepad, and the lesson stuck! I couldn't believe it!

If you look closely at this picture, you will see S and o very clearly, followed by two extra o's. Then the p (sideways), a stange thing for the h, a giant i, and an a with the line going out sideways. Very, very impressive I thought!

I guess no matter how Brian or I feel about it, our girls continue to grow each day. It's so hard to believe that Maddie closing in on 2 (and is starting to potty train a full year earlier than Sophie did) and that Sophie will soon be 4 (writing her name and going to preschool).

Oh, and one bit of whining: Yesterday came so close to being a perfect day. We went to church in the morning, to the driving range before lunch (the girls brought their own clubs and had a fabulous time), Bri and I got a ton of yardwork done while the girls napped, enjoyed an excellent dinner outside on the deck, and had tons of fun on a giant homemade slip-n-slid. We were reading books and getting the girls ready for bed. Suddenly there was a giant crash, so loud I thought there had been a car accident in front of our house.

It took a minute to discover the source of the noise, but a shelf in our garage - the one that held all of our Christmas ornaments, snow globes, etc. - had fallen off the wall. Dozens of ornaments were shattered into splinters, and force of the crash was so great that two of the hard plastic bins that held the decorations broke into pieces themselves. The star that I loved so well lost two of its points completely, and a really neat glass cube that my aunt's sister made for us was in a thousand pieces. Amazingly, only one snow globe broke, and thankfully, the shelf fell onto the floor rather than the car or worse if someone had been in the garage at the time.

It freaked Sophia out (she hates loud noises) and added unwanted chaos to our night, but it could have been worse. And I guess we'll just get to do a little extra shopping this Christmas. :)

Sophia WoW: "Big helper girl." In the midst of all these new rules Sophia has been a great example. She's great at distracting Madelyn when she's upset and helping her learn the rules and new words when we're having fun. I think it makes her proud to be such a "big helper girl," and she offers a great example for her little sister (who can be a great big helper girl herself sometimes.)

Madelyn WoW: Of all the words that Maddie has learned this week, I'm pretty sure "hup" (help) is my favorite. Especially when it's in the sentence, "Hup peas."

Happy Birthday to Me!

2008-06-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I celebrated the first year of the eternal birthday - I turned 29! I'm going to drag this year out as long as I can and get as much 20-something fun in as possible! And my year sure started off well. Yesterday topped the list of most favoritest birthdays ever.

It started off with church where the VBS kids who I'd been helping teach would sing the songs they'd learned the past week. We had about 85 kids during the week, and Sophia was one of them. She'd practiced the songs every day and loved to sing them constantly. Of course for church that morning we had about 15 kids who came up to sing, and Sophie wasn't one of them. She hid herself behind me while I crouched in front of a pew to help the other little ones with their actions. Sigh. She did get up for the last song and did the actions without singing the words. Maybe next time.

Then we scarfed down some cupcakes from the VBS party and hopped in the car. We took a ferry boat across to Whidbey Island and Fort Casey. After a bit of a (beautiful!) drive, we found the place - an old army garrison that was used to protect the Puget Sound from foreign ships in the late 1800s. It was totally cool! There was a huge grass area where we had a picnic lunch and watched kite fliers, then we explored the huge concrete construction, hidden in the hillside and filled with gigantic guns that would have fired 600-pound projectiles eight miles. Wow!

We then made our way down to the beach (from which you can't tell there is anything but wildflowers on the hillside) and walked for about a mile. Maddie was on a quest for the world's coolest rock (which I think just meant one bigger than her chubby hands could carry, but boy did she try!) while Sophie made Brian dip his toes in the frigid waters again and again.

There was a large rock in the water, so we all took turns standing on that and letting the waves get us. We took time to draw in the sand with sticks and see who could throw rocks the furthest. Then as we ventured back up the hillside we walked barefoot and found pretty flowers of almost every color.

The girls fell right asleep on the car ride back, so Brian and I stopped for ice cream before heading north to Deception Pass, an amazingly spectacular bridge connecting the island with the mainland.

Once home we pulled out the pool, turned on the sprinklers and enjoyed the rest of the wonderfully sunny day enjoying our backyard.

It could not have been more perfect! Happy birthday to me! :)

Madelyn WoW: Sophia has taught her several new words this week including water (wa wa), grandma (ba ma) and boat (ba).

Sophia WoW: Possibly our favorite part of Maddie learning a new word is listening to Sophie teach her. Here's how it went down in the car yesterday, over and over again:
Sophie: Maddie, can you say water?
Maddie: Wa wa!
Sophie: Daddy! Did you hear? Maddie said wh wh wh water!
Sophie: Maddie can you say road?
Maddie: (silence)
Sophie: Daddy! Did you hear? Maddie said ra ra road!

Best part of the day: Brian and both girls sang Happy Birthday to me several times yesterday, and by midday, Madelyn would sing "Ha-pee Mama!" and Sophia of course knows every word. I am one lucky woman!

The rollercoaster

2008-06-21T14:19:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned before how much I love the Steve Martin movie "Parenthood," and again my life seems to be mimicking that most poignant of stories. There is a scene where everything is going wrong just as the family is trying to leave for a kid's play, and the elderly grandmother tells a seemingly pointless story about how when she was young she loved the roller coaster. Something about how other people liked the carousel but that just went around and around; she liked the uncertainty and excitement of the ups and downs. Then, as Steve Martin is watching his toddler destroy his other child's school play, he feels the roller coaster's ups and downs (other parents laughing or hissing, wanting to laugh and cry himself, etc.)

It seems the Berkenhoff household has been in constant up-and-down motion lately. There hasn't been a lot of the boring round-and-round.

It could be that we've just returned from a long vacation and a long car ride, but boy do the valleys seem low and the peaks seem high lately. Please tell me you've been here too and lived through it.

Madelyn is the main source for the moment. She is 21 months and isn't talking or doing as much as Brian or I remember Sophia talking and doing at this age. This is how old Sophia was when Maddie was born, and she seemed so much more able to care for herself, entertain herself, and we know she was saying more. Don't get me wrong: Maddie is smart. So smart. Maybe too smart.

I often wonder if Maddie isn't talking because she gets her point across anyway. She still "eh eh eh's" her way through most of life. She has picked up several new words, but it seems they are all names, which aren't very helpful when she's frustrated and can't tell us what she needs.

She also knows how to push buttons. She loves to tease her big sister (mainly by telling her "no"), and Sophie hasn't figured out how to respond (other than insisting "yes"). So back and forth they go, getting progressively louder and occasionally more physical.

She can be kind of hard on her daddy too, even though she spends a good chunk of the day when he's at work asking for him.

Maddie still insists on a lot of attention from me. She's definitely gotten better about going with other people, but not so much if I'm anywhere in her sight.

And in the midst of all of this dependence, Maddie is becoming more and more independent. She insists on feeding herself all of the time, which works great for fruit and crackers, but not so much for yogurt and messy things like that. And Maddie loves a good mess too.

But while life with Maddie is loud, challenging and unpredictable in its predictable sort of way, she can also make us laugh beyond belief, and she gives the best two-handed, chubby-cheeks kisses and hugs that ever were. So what do you do?

Sophia, on the other hand, is much more even-keeled, much more able to express herself (on and on and on) and much more self-sufficient. She has grown into such a kind-hearted and smart little girl, it takes our breath away sometimes. She picks up on everything we say and do, and is a little grown-up in almost every way.

But she has her moments too. The other day I was about to carry laundry upstairs and was looking for something I'd set on the stairs to take up with me and couldn't find. I hollered upstairs to Sophie to see if she knew where it was, and she said, "Oh, I brought it up so you wouldn't have to Mommy." How sweet! Then she proceeded to help me fold laundry (actually doing it right) and then went and put towels away downstairs without even being asked! I was amazed and touched, and told her how much I appreciate her being "a big helper girl."

Fast forward a couple hours, and she's in a screaming kicking fit because I won't lay with her in bed until she's asleep or give in to her dozen various requests to delay bedtime (a terrible and dramatic routine she's gotten into since we returned.) So what do you do?

Just keep going, I guess. Enjoying the ups and getting through the downs. It is fun, but I tell you, I wouldn't mind a little (just a little) round and round right now. :)

Sophia WoW: "Exciged." This is one that's been around for awhile and I don't think we'll ever correct her. You just can't help but smile when you hear, "I'm so exciged to go bowlin'!"

Madelyn WoW: "Ooh ooh." This is distinct from last week's "oh," because this is the sound a monkey makes, and it's what Maddie says when she sees Curious George. Oh.

We're home

2008-06-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

Another 1,560 miles on the minivan and we're home from our month-long trip to South Dakota. The ride back was pretty comparable to the ride there: long and sometimes challenging, but for the most part good. We made it and that's what counts!

The girls have both grown so much in the last month and are doing and saying so many funny and amazing things. Let's see how many I can remember:

* During the first hour of our ride home, Brian taught Madelyn about six new words. It was incredible! She picked up "ha a go!" (here we go!), "ya ya ya" (ya ya ya - she usually says yes by simply opening and closing her mouth), and Einar (Heidi's friend from Norway who is now saying with my folks).

* Sophia fell in love with the trampoline at Heidi and Anja's. Normally I hate those things - they look so dangerous! But Sophia mastered it and would hop all around for hours on end if we'd let her. She especially loved on hot days when we would put the sprinkler underneath it. And that lead to another fun discovery for Sophia: peeing outside. Now she wants to do it all the time. Sigh.

* Maddie loved to pick on her aunt Anja by calling her Heidi all the time for the last several weeks. It drove Anja nuts, but Maddie (and Heidi) thought there was nothing funnier in the world.

* Despite my best efforts to persuade her otherwise, Sophia decided she likes Barbies and cheerleading. She also discovered the importance of hairspray (One day it was so bad she looked like she had terrible dandruff even after two washings), and picked up some teenage attitude from her aunties (Heidi would pick on her and she would snap back, "Hi-DI. Don't DO that!")

* Both of our girls are fairly shy with strangers or people they haven't seen in awhile, but of the two, Madelyn is much quicker to warm up. At bedtime, if she kisses anyone goodnight, she has to kiss the whole room. And her newest, cutest habit is to hold either side of your face while she's planting one on you. Those chubby fingers and those chubby cheeks - it's almost too much to bear!

* Speaking of chubbiness, my stepdad Randy's family has always called a child's belly a "tub o' chub." Sophie must have picked that up because yesterday when she was tickling Maddie she called her a a "tubby chubby." Ha!

*One evening it became very stormy there and the rain was just dumping down. Heidi, cousin Evan and friend Einar decided it would be fun to jump in puddles and then jump on the trampoline in the pouring-down rain. Sophia stood in her PJs at the door and yelled again and again for Heidi to come in. Finally she yelled at the top of her lungs, "Hi-DI! I'm very, very concerned about you. I'm just not sure about this!" We could not stop laughing!

Sophia WoW: As an addition to Sophia's last Word of the Week, she now tells us at least three times each day, "I can almost reach the ceilin'." A girl's gotta have a goal!

Madelyn WoW: "Oh." She pronounces it right and uses it correctly; she's becoming such a big girl! Whenever we tell her... well, almost anything... she responds with "Oh." For example:

Me: Maddie, that is Sophia's toy.
Maddie: Oh.

Me: If you can finish your dinner you can have a treat.

Maddie: Oh.

Me: We only have 19 hours left of this drive, Maddie!
Maddie: Oh.

P.S. Happy Graduation Heidi, Kylie & Alyssa!!

Update from SoDak

2008-05-29T06:44:00.001-07:00

Hard to believe but we've already been in the land of SoDak for two weeks now! I would have posted sooner but the computer is in Madelyn's room, so naptimes and bedtime don't exactly leave much computer time!

We drove here in our minivan packed full with our luggage, golf clubs, computer and supplies so Brian can work from here, food, toys, kennels, two dogs and two toddlers. We drove for three days. Three days.

It actually went about as smoothly as we could have hoped. The dogs did perfectly, other than Daisy basically shut down. She acted normally, but wouldn't eat, drink or go to the bathroom for the entire ride. That had us a little nervous, but she's fine now.

The girls did really great, but by the end were of course tired of the car. We had gotten a two-screen DVD player for the car, so that definitely helped. We made Sophia wait a whole 22 minutes before putting in the first movie as we left Snohomish. Sophie was entranced and would have watched movies the whole way if we had let her. Madelyn on the other hand, enjoyed the movies for a bit, but after the first one, she'd yell "No!" whenever we tried to put one in! She'd watch the screen for about 20 minutes and then get very bored of it.

We had lots of new toys and books for them to play with, plus lots of yummy snacks. The each slept for 45 minutes in the car each day, and we had hoped for much longer naps so that was a little hard. To give you some perspective, the first day we drove 9 hours, the second day 12 and the third day 7. Uff! The last two hours of that middle day were the toughest. Maddie kept pulling at her buckle and desperately signing "please, please!"

But we got here and the girls are having a great time! Brian was treated to choir and band concerts that he just loved that first week. We helped my cousins Kylie and Alyssa, and my sister Heidi celebrate their high school graduations. We've been out golfing several times and Sophia just loves it! We've been eating very well, and Brian has even found a few vegetarian options amongst the deer jerky and beef steaks.

Next week Brian and I are heading to Minneapolis for three days alone, and we're looking forward to that. The rest of our time here should be filled with more golf, more eating and more relaxing. Yay!

I don't have any pictures downloaded yet but will try to get to Brian's Brookings office sometime soon to do that and upload some for the blog.

Sophia WoW: Every day when Sophia wakes up, she will without fail say, "Guess what I did when I was sleepin'? I growed tall!" Indeed.

Madelyn WoW: Maddie has mastered several names here including "Hiya" which seems to be a combination of Heidi and Anja (although she says "Hi-ee" and "A-ya" also), "Rail" for Rachel, "Sszzzah!" for Sophia, and "Ha pa" for Papa and Grandpa! She's doing a lot of jabbering and more words are coming all of the time!

Stories

2008-05-05T15:31:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons Brian and I wanted to start a family blog was to help us remember all of the funny stories and cute sayings from our kids' early years. The trouble with that is that you have to post often enough to remember them in the first place! So, here are some from the top of my head (and it seems like most of them this week are Sophie-related. Sorry Mads.)

* We sold Maddie's crib the other day, but before the couple came to pick it up, we took off her crib aquarium for us to keep. As they were loading the crib, Sophie came running out with the aquarium saying, "You forgot this!" I casually said something to the affect of, "Oh no honey, we're going to save that for when we have another baby," and continued helping load. Sophie stood quietly for a bit and then said, all seriousness, "We're going to have another baby?" Oh my! I tried to explain that it wouldn't be for many years, but that someday might have another baby in our family. Then the next day I heard her in the car explaining to Maddie all about our "new baby." Uff!

* Two of my favorite Sophie sayings that I don't think have ever made the Word of the Week: "I'm am." And "I hate it," which really means "I ate it," but she adds and "h" onto eat and ate. So sometimes she "heats" her food, and sometimes she already "hate" it.

* Sophie has also really started taking care of Madelyn in a whole new way. She loves to help her get out of bed, lead her in games, and she's even gotten her cereal before! It is wonderful to have such a big helper! The other day I was upstairs and Maddie was crying for food and I kept asking her to wait "just a minute." Sophie said she would help, so she coaxed Maddie down the stairs, bouncing along with her, then got her some crackers and coaxed her back upstairs. It was so sweet!

* Sophie is also quite a little philosopher. In the car this week after Madelyn had been crying for a bit, Sophia said, "I guess God made Maddie a crying girl." :)

* This is not a fun story, but just happened mid-blog (it's taking me a couple days to finish this!) As I was pulling Maddie out of her car seat yesterday she started crying. I thought she'd just bumped into something, but she kept holding her arm and crying. I had her squeeze my finger and tried rotating her wrist and shoulder and nothing seemed amiss, so I chalked it up to tiredness and put her down for a nap. She woke up an hour later still holding her wrist. She couldn't seem to lift a spoon to her mouth, and she was using only her left hand, so I took her to the clinic. After an hour and a very traumatic X-ray experience, it turns out she had a ligament that popped out (or whatever ligaments do when they go awry) in her elbow. Apparently it's very common in kids under 6, and after it pops back in is just sore for a day. She's doing much better today, thank goodness!

* Sophia is remembering so much more now, it amazes me. We had her hair in braids today, and when I took it out she said, "I look like Tiffany. She has curly hair." Tiffany is a cousin that she hasn't seen since Christmas! Wow!

* Have I mentioned yet how Madelyn "says" yes? It's so cute, but difficult to explain. Basically she moves her jaw up and down without a sound. If she was making a noise, it would be "ya ya ya ya ya ya ya" but for now it's just the movement. Hilarious and effective all at once!

Sophia WoW: "Maybe when I'm four." Sophie likes to use this when she doesn't want to eat something ("Maybe when I'm four I'll like kiwi") or can't do something ("Maybe when I'm four I can drive the car") or is being shy ("Maybe when I'm four I'll tell Nick 'Happy Birthday!'")

Madelyn WoW: "Zzzaaahh!!" Sophie is sure this means Sophia, but I'm not so sure. Sophia will ask Maddie to say her name in the car, and this is always how Maddie responds, but this is also how she says Zod (aunt Erika & uncle Evan's cat) and Zack.

And since I didn't have a lot of Maddie stories, I'll give her two WoWs: "Howie." No idea what this means, but she walks around saying "howie howie howie howie howie" an awful lot...

April update

2008-04-24T15:20:00.000-07:00

Quick! Post a new blog entry before it's been a month since the last one. If Maddie takes a long nap, I might actually make it.... How it can possibly be one week until MAY I have no idea.

I do have excuses for my tardiness in blogging though. Plenty of excuses. And they all happen to be topics I need to update you on anyway. Let's see... Brian managed to fracture his hip (but you heard about that one in the last posting), we had more visitors when my dad, stepmom and grandma came to visit, Madelyn moved into a big-girl bed, there was a combo dentist visit in there somewhere, cabinets were installed in our dining room over two full days, preschool and church commitments kept us pretty busy... oh, and we had to do that whole raising-two-toddlers thing too. Whew!

So Brian's hip: He's still on crutches and we're awaiting a new checkup in the next week. It's hard to know how much healing is actually taking place until the next MRI. Hopefully he'll be told he can be off crutches because those are a real pain. Literally!

Visitors: In a wonderful whirlwind week, my dad, stepmom and grandma came to visit and we had a great time. This trip was especially special because Grandma had never been to Washington to see us! Madelyn happened to be fairly sick the first few days, but Sophia started playing "boo" with Grandpa Rick and Grandma Karen in the airport and didn't stop until they left a week later! And by the end, Maddie was showing hints of her typical funny self. The last couple days they were here were wonderfully sunny so we grilled and ate outside; a very tempting taste of summer (exactly one week later we had 4 inches of snow!!) And for Dad's birthday we went to a Mariner's game where it just happened to be 80 degrees. Awesome! It was great to get to see the girls form even closer relationships with "grandmas and grandpa" on their own turf.

Maddie's big-girl bed: In an effort to make our travels to South Dakota more restful (she wakes up at 3 a.m. every night she's in a pack-n-play) we decided to give it a whirl. Sophia was about 18 months when we upgraded her, but that was because a new baby was on the way. Now our baby is almost 20 months, and although she's much more... shall we say, feisty... than her big sister, we hoped for the best.

The full-sized bed came the day after grandmas and grandpa left, just in time for nap time. We hyped it up and when it came she could hardly wait for it to be assembled before crawling on the box spring. I gave Maddie a mini-speech, telling her this was her new bed and she needed to stay in it to sleep, only Mommy or Daddy can get you out, etc. I rocked her, laid her down, and exited the room confused because she hadn't offered up any protest. I stood outside the door waiting for the "clunk" of her falling off or the wail that was sure to come. Nothing. After about five minutes I said, "Huh" and went about my business. She slept for an hour before crying for me to get her.

That night I had a meeting so Brian and his crutches had bedtime duty. He laid Maddie down and this time she cried a bit, but was out before he finished reading Sophia her bedtime story! That first night she did fall out of bed at about 10 (off the foot of the bed, so we've been better at blockading that with pillows) but went right back down and we haven't had any problems since. She's even napping for 2 hours instead of her very regular hour and a half. Go figure!

Dentist: The day after he arrived, my dad got to accompany us to the girls' dentist. Now that's a devoted Grandpa. I mean who goes to the dentist unless they really have to? And thank goodness he was here! Sophia was talking big, just like last time (which ended in screaming, kicking and some foaming at the mouth which may or may not have been due to the fluoride application), but when she saw the chair she slowed. I saw the flash in her eyes that indicates she isn't about to do whatever it is she was so excited about a minute ago. But then she looked at Grandpa Rick behind her and something made her brave. She climbed into the chair and I swear that dentist visit was one of the cutest things I ever saw. She opened her mouth as wide as she could while the hygienist was explaining to her what would happen. She didn't say a word but she did everything the nice woman suggested. She even had X-rays. Of course, once the dentist (who was a man) entered the picture we were back to the screaming, kicking, foaming mess, but that lasted only about 45 seconds, so all in all, not a bad trip! And Maddie was as brave as could be for her first exam, letting the dentist - still a guy - check her out and everything.

This post is getting long (imagine that, after only a month of not writing!) and nap time is dwindling so let's wrap 'er up.

Sophia WoW: "Stoo." This is one she's said for quite some time and it's just cute - it means "stool," as in "bar stoo," but it seems like she just can't get that final "L" sound. Same deal for "swim poo." Cracks me up.

Madelyn WoW: Maddie actually has several new words lately, although only Brian, Sophia and I can recognize them and even that is not all of the time. Mostly she says proper nouns and animal sounds, and "Ba" has about 20 meanings now, but my favorite new word is "Me-me" which means "money," which means the penny that she likes to carry around and throw.

Two Blonde Cuties - Mamma Mia!

2008-03-28T17:32:00.000-07:00

Well, since Nikky is up to her usual - eating bon-bons and watching TV - I decided it was time to update the blog myself. OK - maybe she's not partaking in bon-bons and TV but definitely wine and chocolate. FINE - she's cooking me dinner and watching the girls while I drink a beer and play on the computer.

We have just finished a fantastic week with two of my favorite people in the world - Nikky's younger sister Heidi and her cousin Kylie. What great kids - sorry - young adults. They are the nicest, sweetest, coolest people you'd want to have around you. And so helpful to boot. They were great with the kids and I didn't have to change one diaper during the trip. (Come to think of it I may be 0 for 2008 on that count! I'm not just sucking up either with our forthcoming trip to South Dakota. If I think less of someone or generally disdain them I'm not afraid to admit it. Rachel. Bill.

First off - I think it's awesome that two 18 year old, attractive, fun high school girls would even think of spending their final spring break with their 20 something (I get to group myself in Nikky's age bracket - house rules) relatives with kids. I mean Kylie's family was off to Puerto Vallarta and I'm sure they had friends interested in going someplace where girls could go wild.But Snohomish, Washington? That takes class. They chose Girls Gone Bored.

Needless to say, as Nichole was in charge the trip was a whirlwhind of activities. Lunch with Melissa upon arrival, ice skating, a trip to the Children's Museum, a day in Seattle (with Pike Place Market, shopping, the Seattle Center & EMP, dinner at Benihana's and a Broadway Show) plus a few other things kept the girls running.

I think the reason Nikky forces our guests out of the house is so that she can indulge her favorite pastime - eating out! Of course, I am quickly realizing that our younger guests have a MUCH lower metabolism than I do as my suit I wore on Easter was quite snug. Yet they wore things an 18 year old would wear!

The day before Easter we went on a rousing Easter egg hunt at church. The speed and mobility of the girls had definitely increased over last year! Sophie and Maddie got faster too. We also hosted Easter with my family and that proved to be a houseful! However we had a fun Wii tournament that helped us to burn off some of that food Nikky and the girls cooked. I also got to see my Mom beat the crap out of Nikky at boxing, which was quite hilarious. No pent up tension there!

Throughout all of this I got to hop along like a gimp. I had been training for a half-marathon in May (which was supposed to lead to a full marathon in October). About three weeks ago, I went out for a run and noticed some pain in my leg - but I attributed it to a bee sting I got that day in the hip. I ran a couple of days later and had to stop and hobble back to the car. Each day it's gotten worse. I've been to several doctors and physical therapists and to make a long story short I have a stress fracture in my hip. It apparently is quite big and I've been put on crutches for 6 weeks. The threat is that if I complete the fracture I will need my hip replaced. Yeah - this will be easy. 2 toddlers, 2 dogs and no weight bearing for 6 weeks. I think I'll get one of those bells that I ring whenever I need something. I think that would be just what Nikky needs.

One final note: Congratulations to my favorite sister-in-law Anja (no offense Heidi) on becoming a cheerleader. I'm actually frowning as I type this because historically I have mocked the cheerleader types (mainly because they rejected me in high school). But I suppose since I'm related to her I have to cheer (pun intended) her on. I'm sure I'll get to attend one of the games she cheers at (actually it's guaranteed with Lori as a Mother-In-Law). Watch for me Anja - I'll be the one asleep in the crowd.

Sophia WoW: Miss Daddy. Damn it, I live with too much estrogen. Nikky calls all women Miss something or another. Apparently I'm a woman. Because Sophie LOVES calling me Miss Daddy. This too shall pass, right?

Maddie WoW: Well, her sign of the week at least: Airplane. Ask her where Heidi and Kylie went and she'll raise her hand and make the sign for an airplane.

One set of in-laws down, another to go: Nikky's Dad (Rick), Stepmom (Karen), and Grandma (Bev) are due out in just over a week.

Regards,

Miss Daddy

Less pink

2008-03-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

Remember how I painted Sophia's room... sigh... pink? Well, she loves it, so what is a mom to do? This weekend we finally got around to painting the butterflies and flowers to make it a little less pink. (The first person to point out that half the butterflies are pink gets an e-slap! :)

I'm actually quite proud of my creation, despite its girly-ness. I painted the butterflies freehand with paint I had used three years ago in our old house to stencil butterflies. Then I was terrified that I might go outside of the lines. This time I said that if I messed up I was sure I could turn it into something that would work.

The flowers around the window and door are called Wallies - little wallpaper cutouts that you put in water and slap on the wall. Now that's a great invention. The vines and leaves I drew with a paint pen. Ta-da!

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The other day another friend from Melissa and Brandon's wedding emailed us a picture from that night. I think this photo truly sums up the relationship between Brian and I. Keep in mind that this was the face Brian was making to Mel while she was dancing her first dance with her new husband. Moments later he tried to dance with the groom's dad.

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One more picture to show what a bruiser Maddie has become. This is after she did a nose-dive while pushing a toy at a friend's house the other day.

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I'm really going to have to rename the "WoW." It started as Word of the Week, but now Sophie's are sentences more often than not, and Maddie... well, Maddie doesn't have many new words. (Speaking of #2, she had her 18 month checkup today. Everything looked great and the doc said that words should start pouring out soon, so here's hoping!) Anyway, I thought of Line of the Week, but that might be confused for a LOW point of the week; I thought Sentence of the Week, but SOW just doesn't seem right. So WoW it is until one of you can come up with something better.

Sophia WoW: Tonight as I was laying Sophie down in bed, we said our prayers together as usual. Brian is at a meeting in Seattle tonight, and it's blustery and rainy here, so I prayed, "Jesus, please bring Daddy home safely." To which Sophie replied, "Is Jesus driving Daddy home from his meeting?"

Madelyn WoW: One of the questions I had for Maddie's doctor today regarded her language development and how she's really only said one new word since her 15 month checkup. (Faithful blog readers will know that word as woof-woof.) (Of course, I'm not sure if "ba" counts as one word or 10 since to Maddie it can mean ball, bath, belly, bird, boo...) Anyway, while waiting we were reading a book with a horse in it. I pointed and said, "Horse. Neigh." To which she replied, "Neigh!" Go figure.

!Viva Mexico!

2008-03-06T15:19:00.000-08:00

Brian and I just returned from a 5-day trip to Mexico to see our best friend Melissa marry our wonderful new friend Brandon. Picture it - a beautiful bride, barefoot and in a flowing white dress, marrying the man of her dreams under an arch of flowers on the beach at sunset. Sound perfect? It was. We managed to take more than 200 pictures over five days, so I'll try to be selective about which ones I post here, but it will be hard.

Last Thursday we flew direct from Seattle to Puerto Vallarta (and finally got our first stamps on our passports - Yay!) After making our way through customs without any problems, we were greeted by throngs of people seemingly willing to help you get to your destination but really wanting to sell you timeshares. After navigating through that, Brian was exchanging dollars for pesos when I found us a taxi. For twice the price it was supposed to cost. Thankfully Brian got us out of that one too, and we hopped in a van with a few other people. When the other couple said they were going to Guayabitos, we found out they were part of the wedding party too. Not "wedding party" in the traditional sense, but the party that was that weekend as we all helped Melissa and Brandon celebrate their marriage.

An hour from PV, Guayabitos is a town located on a bay with beautiful beaches. It seems to be a place where Mexicans go to vacation more than Americans do, so it was fun to see that side of Mexico. We got to the town just in time for the rehearsal dinner, held at a restaurant called Vista Guayabitos. Up on a hillside overlooking the bay, it totally lived up to its name. We ate, drank, karaoked, drank some more, and had a fabulous time.

The next morning, the day of the wedding, everyone lazily strolled the beaches, did some shopping, played in the waves, and eventually got ready for the wedding. With a little phone help from my little sister Heidi beforehand, I managed to do the bride's hair, of which I was immensely proud. (Anyone who knew me and my hair in high school or college should be able to understand why.)

Everyone met for drinks and appetizers at Brandon's cousin's house/bed & breakfast down by the beach. This place was amazing and I think inspired many of us visiting to consider a summer home there. Mostly open air with a pool, incredible flowers and three or four separate terrace areas, it was beautifully and simply decorated for the reception.

As we neared sunset, the guests all made their way to the beach. (Many of the women left their shoes on the edge of the road before the sand.) Then the bride and groom came with their families, serenaded by a local guitarist. The wedding ceremony was performed by a family friend and was simply beautiful. The vows the couple wrote made us all cry (Brian handily left his sunglasses on for the ceremony!) And once Brandon and Melissa kissed to seal the deal, we all headed back to the house for dinner and more dancing. By the end of the night about 10 people hopped in the pool fully clothed. The next morning we all came over for leftover cake. It couldn't have been more perfect.

Saturday Brian and I headed to a resort in Puerto

Vallarta for two nights of much needed just-us time. Again, it couldn't have been more amazing. The resort was all-inclusive, and when they say "all," they mean all. Food, drinks, room service, liquor to take home, spa treatments each day... Wow. And an infinity pool (with swim-up bar) that looked as though it stretched right into the ocean. Ah the ocean - that's where we boogie-boarded for the first time ever. What a blast! The weather was perfect, in the mid- to upper-70s the whole time. The whole trip was... perfect. There's no other way to describe it.

And while we were away, Brian's parents came to our house to stay with the girls. Sophie was so excited before they came that she kept packing her suitcase to get ready for them! Mary came armed with all sorts of fun projects: decorating T-shirts, making bunny hats, baking cookies, and of course there were darling "welcome home" cards waiting for us when we returned. They all had a ton of fun and managed to completely wear each other out. Mary tells us she feel asleep grocery shopping the next day, and Maddie and Sophie have never taken such long naps as they did yesterday!

As a matter of fact, the morning after we got home (the girls were asleep by the time we got back), Sophie was all hugs and kisses... until we walked into our bedroom, where she had gone the last four mornings to wake Grandma and Grandpa. She dropped to her knees and just started sobbing, that she missed Grandma Mary and Grandpa Hans. You know they had a great time after that! Thank you so very much, Hans and Mary, for helping all four of us to have a fantastic weekend! :)

Sophie WoW: "I'd love to." Not sure if she picked this up from Grandma Mary, but this is her new response whenever we ask her to do something. "Do you want to eat an apple?" "I'd love to." "Do you want to do dishes?" "I'd love to."

Madelyn WoW: We still aren't hearing many new words, but she did learn sign language for "cracker" this week, which is a huge step because most of our frustration centers around food with Maddie.

Some pics

2008-02-20T20:46:00.001-08:00

Not a lot of time lately for a real post, but here are some new pictures to keep the grandmas happy! :)

Brian surprised the girls with a new sandbox this week and they were thrilled with it, both inside and out! Fortunately we've had several sunny days so they could enjoy it before Washington's "spring" (i.e. rain) hits again.

Brian celebrated his 32nd birthday last weekend. We got to hit Snohomish together sans kids and had a great time, then had his family over to help celebrate on Sunday. Sophia helped make his cake, complete with her favorite thing in the world: sprinkles.

This is just a picture of both girls looking darling. Sophie in her cool new tights and Madelyn with her "big girl hair."

Sophia and her Georges.

Sophia WoW: "It's okay." Our little mother loves to tell Maddie that "It's okay" whenever she's crying, or tell her baby that when ... I guess when something's wrong with baby, and tell me that whenever she can tell I'm getting stressed: "It's okay, Mommy." Often the sweetest words in the world to hear, except when I'm stressed because she's just done something naughty. :)

Madelyn WoW: "Woof woof woof woof!!" I actually have a new word to report! Maddie has suddenly figured out what a puppy says. Or in Maddie-world, what any animal says. It's hilarious and super-cute because when she does it it's barely above a whisper, she puffs her cheeks and slants her mouth so that she looks like Popeye. I'll try for a picture.

All grown up

2008-01-31T15:39:00.000-08:00

How can it be that our girls, who are only 3 and 1 1/2, seem so grown up? And in such amazingly different ways? I guess that is one of the true joys of being a parent: watching these snuggly little bundles turn into real people.

These last couple weeks we have witnessed several examples of Sophia turning into a girl and Madelyn into a toddler. Let's see how many of them I can remember now that I have a minute to document them...

* The most visible change is probably Sophie's "new" room. Brian's folks took the girls overnight last weekend (where they all had a great time, despite less sleep than all had hoped for! :) while Brian worked on projects around the house and I painted Sophie's room. Pink.

I guess this shows how parenthood has changed me too. Since I was a teenager I've hated minivans and have sworn I would never drive one; we got a lovely blue Odyssey before Maddie was born. With my red hair I have always hated pink and swore my daughters wouldn't be caught up in all that girly stuff; now Sophia loves her pink room. Sigh. What we won't do for our kids...

Anyway, with the new paint, we rearranged her room too. Now this was a daring thing to do because Sophie likes/needs everything just so. Like Monica from Friends says, "If it's not a right angle, it's a wrong angle." But we gave it a shot while she was gone at Grandma and Grandpa's, and when she got home Brian really hammed it up, showing her how exciting it was to have your bed on this wall and a calendar on this wall and a clock over here... She took the bait and loves it. But the whole point of this story is that now our "baby" has a queen-size bed that doesn't have any rails and isn't against any walls. It's truly a big-girl bed!

* Do you know the movie Parenthood? It's one of my all-time favorites, with Steve Martin as the kooky dad and Keanu Reeves (back in his Bill & Ted days) as a punk teenager. In this movie, Steve Martin has a toddler who isn't especially talented at anything, except maybe doing random silly things. In my favorite scene, the kid has a bucket on his head and proceeds to run into the wall over and over again. It is hilarious, and I have always wanted to have that kid. Well, now I do! The other day Maddie was wearing Brian's hat over her eyes in the bathroom and walked directly into the shower door. It was the funniest thing ever!

* Then today at a friend's house, Madelyn takes Sophie's birthday crown from preschool, puts it on upside-down, slides it down to cover her eyes, and walks around saying, "Eh, eh, eh!" Obviously quite proud of herself! Makes me awfully proud as a mama too!!

* Sophie's new favorite phrase is "all the time." As in, "Why she do that all the time?" and, "Why that happen all the time?" Whether it happens a lot or has never previously occurred in her lifetime, it's all the time in Sophie-land.

* In Maddie-land, her favorite part of the day has become quite obvious lately: it's when Daddy comes home from work. If she gets an inkling that he's on his way, she'll waddle as fast as she can over to the front window and stand their anxiously pointing and "eh eh"ing. When she sees his truck pull in, she squeals in delight and waddles over to the door to try to open it. Yesterday it was about 35 degrees outside, and she had only one sock on, yet she insisted on standing on the front steps while he got out of the car to come inside. Melts our hearts every time!

* In perhaps her biggest big-girl move, Sophie has decided to leave baby and blankie at home for the last few days. Normally we don't go anywhere without these appendages, and neither Brian nor I minded (yet) so haven't made any fuss about it. But this week I said as we were leaving that we forgot them upstairs and I would run get them. Sophie said, "That's ok" and off we went. I was terrified that we'd have a meltdown once we were too far gone to return, but she left them at home again today when we went to Preschool and then to our friends' house for lunch. Wow. What's next, no thumb-sucking for bedtime?

I'm certain that there are other more nuanced ways our girls are growing each day and they make me both proud and sad. I know that in no time they will be graduating from High School, like my little sister Heidi will in less than four months. Now really, when did she grow up??

Sophia WoW: In keeping with her big-girl talk, Sophia is picking up on what we call other people. The other day she was doing my hair and asked me, "Can you get me the squirter, honey?" And lately I've been known as "Miss Mommy," which I think comes from when I sometimes call them Miss Sophie or Miss Maddie.

Madelyn WoW: Still no new words that I am aware of to report; she "eh's" and "meem's" her way through the day, but now she is signing several words including more, eat, please, thank you and bath. It's a start!

New year, new bathroom

2008-01-23T14:06:00.000-08:00

For our Christmas present to the girls, Brian and I decided we'd redo their bathroom. We figured they would be absolutely spoiled by grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins (which they totally were!), and this was pretty practical but could be fun.

Fortunately for us, the girls both seem thrilled with their new digs. We wrapped up the toothbrush holder, soap dispenser, shower curtain and other such fun accessories and put them under the tree. Then this past weekend Brian took the girls to the Aquarium for the day while I painted.

We wanted an underwater look to go with our fish theme so I picked a couple shades of blue and decided to try my hand at rag-rolling. Despite the fact (or perhaps because of it) that our base coat matched 3M's blue paint-tape perfectly, the room turned out pretty cool! The girls seem to love it, and it's nice to have such a bright fun room in the house.

This weekend's project: Sophia's room, which both Sophie and Brian have convinced me we should paint...pink. Sigh.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-19T12:25:00.000-08:00

That's right, we're nearly 3 weeks into 2008, but I'm not afraid to say it: Happy New Year! So far it's been too busy to make any resolutions but I'm hopeful for blog posts more than once a month. We'll see...

Since the last time I typed, we have traveled to South Dakota; played in the snow; celebrated Christmas; baked and eaten way too many goodies; rang in the New Year; played with fun cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles; wished Sophia a happy 3rd birthday; opened about 6 dozen presents; flown back home to Washington; celebrated another 3rd birthday for Sophie with the WA family; and returned to daily life and all its fun busyness! Whew!

As both girls are growing Brian and I are constantly amazed. Sophia's sentences are becoming longer and longer, and her thought processes are simply amazing! Madelyn is running everywhere (her favorite game is to be chased by someone threatening to tickle her belly!), using more sign language all of the time, and obviously comprehending almost everything you tell her. She doesn't have a lot of new words yet, but she is finding ways to communicate and we don't think it will be long before the floodgates are opened.

The really great part lately has been watching Sophie and Maddie's relationship blossom. Sophia has always been the mother hen, ready to bring Madelyn toys, sing to comfort her or act silly to make her laugh. And Madelyn has always loved Sophia unconditionally. Recently though, they seem to really be becoming friends. And watching them together makes my heart swell with pride and love.

Of course they do bug each other often. When one has a toy the other automatically wants it. Now. And badly! Sometimes there is toy stealing or a little pushing. Once Maddie pulled a fistful of hair out of Sophie's head because she was on my lap, where Maddie wanted to be.

But more often than not they are great playmates. When Sophia fell down the other day and was crying in my lap, Maddie waddled over (because that's what she does... waddle) and patted Sophie on the back. Maddie also knows which babies are Sophie's and thus off limits to little sisters. When Sophie's not looking, Maddie loves to play with them, but once big sister notices, Madelyn is quick to hand them over.

And now that Sophie is so articulate, she loves to tell Madelyn where we're going, or where we've been, and how exciting and fun it will be (or was). It usually goes something like this:

Sophia: "Maddie do you know where we're going? Yeah? You're going to Ms. Heather's house and I'm going to preschool. That be fun? Yeah?"

Madelyn: Stares at Sophia.

Sophia: You get to play with Nick and Ally and Zack. That be fun? Yeah?"

Sophia WoW: "Whales." Brian and I each have a set of dumbbell weights that we use, and Sophs loves to watch us and try them herself but she can't seem to get that they are "weights" not "whales." Of course we're not too quick to correct her. There aren't too many of these cute little words left!

Madelyn WoW: "Eh eh" continues to be Maddie's word of choice, as she points to what she wants. And if you're not paying attention, this phrase gets very loud very quickly!

Catching up...

2007-12-12T13:57:00.000-08:00

Wow. It must be the holiday season. I had no idea it had been a month since I'd posted. I don't even remember what we've done in the last month, so I'll catch you up with pictures and the highlights.

* We had a fun and very yummy Thanksgiving at Grandpa Hans and Grandma Mary's house. So much food and lots of fun family time! Of course Sophie & Maddie decided "noodles and cheese" is as good as any turkey dinner. Go figure.

* We had a great time decorating the house for Christmas. Brian strung lights outside (a thing he used to refuse to do, but now can't say no to the girls) while the girls and I decorated inside. At first all of the ornaments were on the bottom of the tree because that's where Sophie hung them. Now they're all at the top because Maddie has removed them for us (and broken a few, but hey, what can you expect when you put a 15-month old in the same room with shiny balls??)

* We spent a lovely day in Seattle watching Uncle Evan run the Seattle Marathon. Yay Ev!

* We went with a few friends to visit Santa and get the girls' pictures taken with him. Sophie looked at pictures from the last two years and talked all the way there about what she would say to Santa. She watched her friends give him high-fives and sit on his lap, but... you know what's coming... when it was her turn she decided to lay on the floor instead. Santa was very cute and patient, asking if he could nap with her on the floor. Finally we just sat Maddie on his lap, but she started screaming instantly, so we pushed Sophie onto his lap and ran away for them to snap the picture. It is hilarious (but copyrighted, so you'll have to stop by to see it.) Good thing Santa has a good grip! As soon as they were off his lap, both girls were fine. Sophie even called Daddy to tell him about it, and then they both took beautiful pictures in front of another tree.

*It's been quite cold here lately and we've even had some snow, but the girls love to go for walks in the evening to see all of the lights. And man does our new neighborhood have some lights! Wow!

* Sophie is really into cooking these days. Here's a picture of her making some muffins out of dice. They were really hot she said, which is why she needed pot holders. Last weekend she also helped me make sugar cookies. She cut out the shapes and decorated them with sprinkles -- her favorite thing in the world. Good thing Aunt Tracy and Annika had sent us her apron because she was covered in flour!

*Maddie is walking everywhere now, and even starting to run. She still falls a lot, and because she's so fearless, she's covered in bruises. Last week, just in time for a couple Christmas parties, she had one bruise under her left eye, another above her right eye, and one right in between her eyes. Today she just fell and gave herself a fat lip. Sigh. (Camilla - do you recognize this beautiful sweater??)

* Sophie has discovered a new favorite pose for pictures. No idea where she learned it.

* We celebrated our family Christmas last weekend with the girls. We gave them a new bathroom set, which they both seem to love. Once things calm down we'll paint it too - blue with fishies!

* Then we had Christmas with the Berkenhoffs here and had a wonderful time! Sophie really is into the present thing, and Maddie's learning quickly. But when Brian asked Sophie her "high" (the best part of her day) that night, she said, "Having Grandma, Grandpa, Erika and Evan over to our house." She knows the real meaning of Christmas (sometimes)!

* We're off to South Dakota for awhile now, so it may be a bit before I post again. We wish you peace and happiness in the new year, but we know that in this joyous time there are many who struggle with loss, with anxiety, with poverty and war, with sickness... Please remember them in your prayers. We know that they and you will all be in our prayers!

Merry Christmas!

Sophia WoW: We've had a few fun ones lately: "fet-shirt" for sweatshirt, "chicken luggets" for chicken nuggets, and "Come on!" whenever something is not working right. Guess she got that one from me...

Madelyn WoW: A new sound has entered Maddie's vocabulary that gets to mean lots of things: "baa." Depending on how she emphasizes this, "baa" can mean ball, banana or even bath. Baby is distinguished with "ba-bee!"

Now that I think of it, Maddie has a few sounds that mean lots of words. Can anyone tell me what "meem" means??

And she's off!!

2007-11-11T18:25:00.001-08:00

Madelyn took her first steps this week! She took just one random step towards Sophia earlier in the week, but it almost seemed like a fluke. Then on Friday she took four steps, again towards Sophie! I stood her up again three times, and each time she took three steps. After that though, she looked at me like, "Enough Mom. I'm not your trained monkey!" and she refused to take any more steps until today again.

I remember Sophia being rather proud of herself with her first steps, but Maddie is taking it in stride. Everyone else walks, so why shouldn't she?

Today we got out the video camera to tape her "first steps" (I hope to post it on here if I can figure that out...) Anyway, so I have the camera, and Brian sets Madelyn up to start her off. Suddenly, Sophia (who had her shirt off because she was eating berries and didn't want to stain it) yells, "Look at me Mommy! Look at me!" I turn the camera to her, and realize she's dropped her pants and is shaking her bare bum for the camera!! Talk about a scene-stealer!

I couldn't believe it! If she's streaking at age 2, what is she going to be doing in her teens?! Oh my.

After we convinced Sophia to pull up her pants and step out of the spotlight for a few seconds, we did get some great video of Madelyn's first steps.

This weekend we also made a gingerbread house out of a kit that Brian had bought. Sophia had a ton of fun making it and eating the candy, and we've even managed to keep it away from the dogs so far!

And as a final note, I just have to say that, although I recognize that I'm prejudiced, our daughters both have the most beautiful eyes. They are so different, but both so brilliant and with such long, dark eyelashes that they inherited from their Daddy. We recently got a new camera (Sophia fell on our old one and busted it, but that's another story...) and it picked up these two amazing pictures. And yes, the girls are playing in a box in Maddie's picture. I mean, what better toy is there than a box??

Sophia WoW: "Head bang." For Halloween, Grandma Lori sent a package of goodies for both girls, but Sophia's favorite thing by far was the package of headbands, which she insists on calling "head bangs." If you accidentally say it the right... er, wrong... way, she will correct you by saying, "It's Head. Bang." She hasn't taken the purple one off since she got them.

Madelyn WoW: It's been a big week. Not only has Maddie started walking, she also is (finally!) signing "more," and today she even said "mo mo" a couple of times. We're on the road to less frustration! Yay!

Trick or Treat

2007-11-05T19:28:00.000-08:00

This year was our first year taking the girls out around the neighborhood for Halloween, and trick-or-treating hasn't been this much fun since I was about seven!

We dressed the girls up that morning for our playgroup's Halloween party - Sophia as Curious George and Madelyn as a pumpkin - and gave Sophs the run-down on the whole trick-or-treat tradeoff. She had the routine down pat and was so excited to go try it out and get some candy.

After applying a little last minute eyeliner to both of their noses (and Maddie's Groucho Marx eyebrows, as Brian called them) we headed out at about 5:30. I expected to hit five or six of the closest houses and then come home to hand out candy the rest of the night.

As we walked to the first house, Sophia kept practicing her "trick-or-treat" and Madelyn was having great fun just playing with her basket. Sophie bravely walked up to that first door, rang the doorbell herself, and when it opened... she buried her face in my leg as fast as she could. They told her they had candy, and she peeked out to see that, sure enough, there was a huge basin full of full-sized candy bars (a good house to start at!) She darted out, grabbed a candy bar and we were off. Brian and I hollered back our "thank you's" and "Happy Halloween's" and as we walked down the driveway, Sophia was so proud, you would have thought she had shouted "Trick or Treat!" and made off with a huge stash.

We convinced her that she needed to wait until home to eat our candy, rather than eating each piece in the driveway of the house where it was received, and we were off to our next house. She didn't run away from this one, but we couldn't convince her to say anything either. Still, every time the door closed, she was as happy as could be and immediately asking, "We go to next house?"

By the fifth or six house, Sophie even started saying Trick or Treat and thanking people and wishing them Happy Halloweens! Who knows, maybe the monkey suit was giving her confidence? As other, bigger kids started to come out, Sophia said, "Look at those kids dressed up just like me!"

Madelyn meanwhile would get to reach for a piece of candy here and there. I was trying to keep her in the background because she obviously wasn't going to eat all that candy, and neither Brian nor I needed it. But whenever someone held their bowl up for Maddie to choose a candy, she would quickly dive for as many as her chubby little hands could hold! She'd put most of them in her little pumpkin, and struggle for about four houses trying to open one candy.

We finally convinced Sophia we needed to head home about an hour and a half later. By this time Madelyn was basically asleep with her eyes open and was hanging on for dear life to her pumpkin. It was so cute. We let Sophie have three or four of her candies and put her to bed a little before 8:00.

When I went to bed two hours later, a jacked-up Sophia was still literally bouncing around her bed: singing, dancing, clapping and telling stories to her baby. It was hilarious, but I have no idea what time she eventually fell asleep! And she was even in a good mood the next morning when we had to wake early for Preschool. Apparently she still had a little sugar left in her system.

I can't wait for next year!

Sophia WoW: "Elso." Most people would spell it "also," but Sophia uses this word in about every other sentence. "I'm wearing a sweater elso." "Can I have some milk elso?" "Our car is blue elso." Just like her other Words of the Week, this one is super cute and makes her seem like such a big girl elso!

Madelyn WoW: We're at that stage now where babbling sometimes sounds like words and you're never quite sure if she's mastered a new one or not. However, Madelyn does love to pretend to talk on the phone (and she uses whatever's available - a play phone, a banana, her hand, a car, whatever...) and she often says some form of "He-o," or "He-wo." It won't be long until she's carrying on conversations!

Fall Fun

2007-10-26T15:09:00.000-07:00

With a fall that has alternated between beautifully sunny days and dreadfully dreary days, we have managed to squeeze in quite a bit of fun and busyness. I can only imagine what the Christmas season (followed immediately by the Sophia-birthday season) will be like!

After my last posting, we headed to Leavenworth - a darling little Bavarian Village in the Cascade Mountains - with Brian's family for a quick weekend away and to celebrate Octoberfest. Brian and I used to make a day-trip there every fall to see the beautiful leaves and shop at the all-Christmas store, but we hadn't been since Sophia was born. Hans, Mary, Erika & Evan were able to come too, so we turned it into a mini birthday celebration for Mary.

We couldn't have picked a nicer weekend: the sun was out in full force and the leaves were breathtakingly brilliant. The colors left us all awestruck, even Sophia noticed! And although Maddie didn't sleep the best that night, we had a ton of fun wandering, eating out, playing putt-putt golf and doing a bit of shopping. Brian and Evan tried a dip so spicy it left Evan (who I had thought could stomach anything) looking exceedingly gray and Brian crying for "Mommy!"

Since then we've been to two different pumpkin farms with the girls and had a blast at both. First Brian and I took the girls, and later the girls and I went with Sophia's preschool. Both times Sophia loved picking out her special pumpkins, and Madelyn loved seeing all the animals. At one they had a huge sandbox-like area filled with corn! So much fun!

Our friend Melissa made it up during one of our sunny days to help carve our pumpkins, a tradition dating back to our pre-kids era. Mel says I bring the enthusiasm, she brings the talent, and Brian brings the griping and whining. (Her fiance Brandon couldn't make it this year, but we wait with baited breath to see what he will bring next year. Maybe that other kind of wine. :)

(This picture won't turn, but it was too cute not to post...)

Sophia's potty training has been going very well for the most part since my last post. After her first two solid weeks with no accidents, she suddenly had 2 accidents at home in one afternoon, then wet her bed during nap two days in a row. My Grandma says a change in the weather can sometimes throw kids off, so we'll hope that's it.

Thankfully most of her accidents have been at home, but we have had the pleasure of experiencing one away from home too. We met up with my friend Clare whom I hadn't seen in three years or more. Since then I've had our two girls and she had her son Jackson. We were having a great time catching up and playing at the Seattle Children's Museum when suddenly Clare said, "Uh oh..."

Despite the fact that I had asked her if she needed to go less than two minutes prior, Sophia had made a large puddle in the kids restaurant kitchen. Someone call the Health Department on that one. I whisked her off to the bathroom while Clare took the unpleasant job of telling one of the workers that they need to clean up some kid's pee.

To make matters worse, I'd left her change of clothes in the car. The car that I had parked valet because it was raining so hard. So I leave Madelyn with Clare and Jackson, wrap Sophia up in her coat and take off running across the Seattle Center in the pouring rain to the valet stand.

Me: "Excuse me sir, I don't need my car, but I need to get to my car."

Valet guy: "Is it something I can get for you?"

Me: Face turns red, eyes to the ground... "Ummm... Well, yeah. Could you get the pair of pink pants and panties stashed behind the driver seat?"

Sure enough, the guy goes and comes running back with hot pink pants and panties in his hand. You can bet he got a good tip. But since then Sophia's been pretty solid again. I guess I couldn't expect her never to have accidents.

And Maddie's doing great too. Still no walking, but she's very steady. Once she decides she's ready it will be no problem. She's also cut her last molar recently, so we're hoping to see a happier side of Madelyn again. She is so much fun when she is happy, but oh boy is she difficult when she's not. :)

Sophia WoW: "What your favorite thing?" We've started asking each other "Highs and lows" at dinner every night. (I.e. What was your best and worst part of your day?) Sophie has started coming up with her own answers for her highs, but optimistic girl that she is, she never has a low. The other day when she asked me, I answered that it was getting to visit with my friend Heather. Sophie studied me and then asked with a twinkle in her eye, "Was it playing with me??" Apparently my highs should always involve Sophia!

Madelyn: WoW: I'm afraid I don't have any new words to report - mama, dada and Daisy seem to be the only ones she's interested in right now - but the other day during Highs and Lows I asked Maddie what her favorite part of the day was, and she responded with a long string of babbling, like she had an answer all prepared for when I finally remembered to ask her!

My Week... Day 6

2007-10-10T21:12:00.000-07:00

Thankfully, there's not much to report today. We had another successful day without any accidents. And we were gone for the longest period yet today: first to playgroup and then running some errands.

Tomorrow afternoon makes it one week that Sophia's been in panties, and we've had only one minor accident.

I think that will wrap up our "week at home" series. Thanks for tuning in, and I promise to turn my attention away from the bathroom. :)

My Week... Day 5

2007-10-09T22:09:00.001-07:00

It's been a good day. I don't know if it was the fact that I had my first coffee in a week, or that the sun had peaked it's shiny face out two days in a row, or what... but I've had a great day.

Today we conquered that last hurdle (well, until we start trying to lose the diapers at night and during naps...) of pooping!! That's right - no more poop talk after today. I hope. And so do you.

Sophie woke up a bit out of sorts, but said right away she needed to go to the potty chair. (This is a really big thing for Sophs because she's a slow waker and doesn't like to be forced into anything first thing in the morning. It has to be her initiative.) Anyway, she did her thing and I tried to help her up, but she said she wasn't done. She talked for a minute and played with her wipes. And suddenly, she looked down and there was poop! We were both so excited, it was hilarious. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine how happy a poop could make me.

Of course we had to call Dad and both Grandmas to tell them the news. (Grandma Mary got a "Happy Birthday" first though, lucky her. Ok, so it came from me because Sophia, who had sung a lovely rendition of "Happy Birthday Grandma" before we called, laid her head on the table and whined, "Noooo" as soon as Grandma answered. Sigh. Happy birthday, Mary! :)

We headed out to run some errands, and Sophie did great as usual. We got home and though I continued to ask her, Sophie said she didn't have to go all morning long. As I was busy in the kitchen, I heard her yell from the family room, "Oh no!" And she's standing with her legs apart. I think she's had her first accident, so I swipe her up and run upstairs, leaving Maddie playing in the pantry.

When we get upstairs I realize it wasn't so much an accident as it was a learning experience. :) She'd gone just a little bit, but as soon as she realized it, she stopped and she was hardly wet at all. We got her undressed and she went in the potty chair and got another coveted sticker for her potty chart.

By the time we got this all done, with the washing the hands and the sticker and the new panties, I realize it's pretty quiet downstairs. Too quiet. And Maddie was in the pantry. Suddenly I'm rushing Sophie along and yelling for Maddie. Again I scoop Sophie up and take off down the stairs. Somehow I missed the last stair though and went crashing down with Sophie in my arms. I managed to turn myself so we didn't land on her though. Mostly. My knee landed on her poor little pinky toe and I have visions of Sophie's broken toe and Maddie choking on some small object in the pantry. We run into the kitchen, Sophie sobbing, and there's Maddie - happy as can be pulling everything off the shelves and not eating a thing. And Sophie's toe was ok after a couple kisses.

Brian was home when Sophie woke up from her nap, and we were getting a few things done around the house and hadn't yet changed her from her diaper (which was dry!) back into panties. Suddenly we hear from the bathroom, "I'm poopin'!!" I run in and sure enough, she's done it again. She'd taken her diaper off and gone all by herself. Apparently we were pressuring her too much before. But then come on, who likes to poop for an audience? Sophie called for Brian, "Daddy, come see my poops!" and patted her hip like we do when we call the dogs. It was a proud moment.

I don't know when a child is technically potty trained, but I have to think this is pretty much it. She tells us, she can go in a public place, and she's gone #1 and #2. I'm thinking we'll just wait until her diaper is consistently dry when she wakes up to start working on the sleeping thing. I can't believe it's gone this smoothly, and I sure hope it continues. I think we were just really lucky in our timing. Here's hoping Maddie's that easy.

And back in Maddie-land, she's been here through this whole week "at home," even though I may not have mentioned her much. Maddie is interesting to Brian and I because neither of us can figure out what we're going to get with this one. Besides screaming every moment she was in the car for her first four months, Madelyn was the easiest, happiest baby. Then she hit nine or ten months and separation anxiety became a huge issue. Then teething was tough, and she was very needy all the time. Then she became happier but loud. Very loud. Now suddenly she's as happy as can be a lot of the time again. Her laugh is beautiful and contagious. She's mischievous and funny. She loves to give kisses that simply melt your heart. She's becoming a lot of fun again. And she's so close to walking. Tonight we were trying to get her to take her first steps and she came so close. I don't think it will be long now.

As a final note, I would just like to say that today I accomplished another major goal: Steve posted a comment on our blog. I knew it would take a lot, but I never guessed it would take this much, Steve! Now I can really be done with the poop posts. ;)

Sophia WoW: While Sophie and Maddie were taking a bath tonight, Sophia gave one dolphin toy to Madelyn and took an identical one for herself. Then she looked at me and said, "Now we eaches have one. We make a good team." It may have been the cutest thing I've ever heard.

Madelyn WoW: Not a word, but the face she makes when she wants to give you a kiss. She doesn't quite pucker her lips, but she puts them together and leans forward. Whether she's in your arms or you're all the way across the room, she only leans in so far, and she knows you'll make up the difference. Melts your heart every time.

I love my family. What a great day.

My Week... Day 4

2007-10-08T21:12:00.000-07:00

Another successful day in the world of potty training... mostly! We conquered one hurdle today but still have one major obstacle remaining.

We went out to Little Gym today, and Sophie went potty there before we left! Yay - we know she can go somewhere other than home! And although I had hoped to be done talking about poop, that's the one area where we're still struggling.

I gotta give the girl credit - she is trying. She'll tell me she has to poop and we'll sit on the potty chair (she even tries to change it up - upstairs little potty or downstairs big potty - to see if either will work). But no luck. We'll get there someday right? Hopefully soon.

But all things considered, I couldn't be more pleased with how our week "at home" has gone. I did just realize today that we have an overnight trip planned for Saturday. Whoops. Good thing she figured out the going-away-from-home thing today!

My Week at Home: Day 3

2007-10-07T19:53:00.000-07:00

Preface: As I write this, I realize that I'm imagining my audience for these particular posts being my fellow moms of two-year-olds, my mom, Brian's mom, my grandma and maybe an aunt or two. Suddenly I imagined myself being one of my single friends reading this. Or one of my married friends with two dogs, no kids. Or, gasp, one of Brian's friends. The latter groups should probably just avoid reading my blog for the next week or so. It'll be cute and funny again soon, I promise!

I can't officially call this My Week at Home anymore because we made it out today! Nevertheless, today's experiences left me as confused as they did proud.

Sophia's been doing so well with potty training -- two and a half days without an accident -- that Brian and I decided to go to church this morning. It's about a two-hour outing, with drive time, etc., so we thought it would be a safe starting point, and it would be handy to have both of us there.

Sophie again solved the pooping problem by going in her diaper before we got her out of bed in the morning. (Wow, who knew I'd have so many blog entries dealing with poop? I wonder if I'm losing readers... And oh my gosh, Sophie's going to kill me when she's 13 and finds out I wrote this...) Anyway, she got up as excited as ever to go on the potty chair but didn't go very much. We got dressed, ate breakfast and were ready to head out the door. I tried to explain the concept of "trying" to Sophia -- you know, "Are you sure you shouldn't try before we get in the car?"

She insisted she didn't have to go, so off we went. Brian and I continued to ask about every three and a half minutes if she had to go potty. Twice during the service, she answered yes, so I'd whisk her off to the ladies room, a Ziploc bag of her "special wipes" (flushable wipes that are easier to use than TP for little bottoms) in tow.

It should be noted here that Sophie has shown a fear of the church bathrooms in the past. When I taught VBS, she would insist on waiting in the hallway for me while I went. Sure enough, during our first try, she wanted nothing to do with that bathroom. Back to church.

A half-hour later, she answered our umpteenth query with a yes. This time we tried a new, "fun" bathroom. She was willing to try this time but no luck.

After church Brian decides that it would be fun to go to the Children's Museum, so we went for about an hour. As we were leaving we tried their "fun" potties, and Sophia again tried, but nothing!

We were gone for three hours and when we finally got home, she was able to go, but not that much. Maybe she really didn't have to go all those times we were asking her. And she followed up with another wonderful, accident-free day!

We'll try another short outing tomorrow and see what happens.

My Week at Home: Day 2

2007-10-06T19:48:00.001-07:00

I'm proud to report another full day without any accidents! Maybe this self-imposed confinement won't have to last as long as I'd thought. And I'm actually not going as stir-crazy as I thought I would. It's fun to just play with the girls and have nowhere to be. The weather certainly has helped; it's perfect cuddle-up-and-stay-inside weather here. (I don't need to be reminded that it's been in the 80s in SoDak, thank you very much.)

Anyway, potty training is going as smoothly as I could have hoped. Today I asked Sophie more often than she told me she had to go, but either way, it worked.

We still haven't solved the poop dilemma however. Sophie simply didn't poop today, so we avoided that one. We'll see what happens tomorrow. We may venture out to church as Sophie's first post-diaper outing. It would be handy to have both Brian and I there for the first time, rather than me trying it myself with both girls. Hmmm... how will that one work, anyway? Guess I hadn't gotten that far yet.

My Week at Home: Day 1

2007-10-05T17:18:00.000-07:00

From yesterday afternoon until next Thursday morning, I have cancelled everything in our schedule, with the hope that one week of focus and time at home will get Sophia potty trained.

We've tried on and off, but things are always so busy that it's been a very stop-and-go effort so far. When we got her potty chair months and months ago, she was so excited. That excitement waned so that during the summer she went maybe five times total. In the last few weeks, she's been showing interest again: talking about the potty chair, going once in awhile, and reading "The Potty Book for Girls" about 50 times a day. I kept waiting for this "quiet time" to appear in our schedules where we could really work on potty training. It never came, so I made it myself.

Yesterday after her nap, Sophie awoke to "Panty Time!!" I'd made a special calendar for her to place stickers when she went successfully, and she was so excited. She went potty right after her nap and picked out which panties she'd wear. She took a late nap, so she only had about three hours before bedtime, so I expected this first night to go well and build some encouragement.

I had no idea it would go this well! I was out for a couple hours last night, and Brian told me the cutest story. He was getting the girls ready for bed and was downstairs with Madelyn. Sophie yelled from upstairs, "You bring me paper towel." He said ok and that he'd be up in a couple minutes. She waited a bit then yelled the same request. He said he'd be right there. A few moments later, she yelled, "You comin' soon?" So he went upstairs with the paper towel, only to find her on the potty chair! She'd gone potty and had tried to get toilet paper, but couldn't get it off the roll. When she saw his paper towel she said, "Oh, no. Paper towels from upstairs." :)

Today we've been in panties all day (except nap time) and we've had complete success! No accidents and more often than not, she's been the one to alert me and she's done a great job!

We're still struggling with the pooping; she's never done that on the potty chair. Today she waited until nap time and went in her diaper. She tells me she has to and tries, but hasn't had any success in that arena yet.

But I couldn't have asked for this to go any better. She was obviously ready, and I'm hopeful that I won't have to spend a whole week cooped up in the house. I'll keep you posted.

P.S. Sorry for any of you who aren't parents. This was probably way too much information! :)

Sophia's photo gallery

2007-10-01T15:32:00.001-07:00

Here are some surprises I found on our camera when I recently downloaded our pictures:

My, how they grow

2007-10-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

I guess I should know this by now, but wow kids grow fast! They truly are learning something new every waking moment, and probably in their sleep too.

It may have taken Madelyn until she was 11 1/2 months old to start crawling, but now that she's off, look out world! As I've mentioned before, she is so unlike her big sister. For our first child, Brian and I child-proofed the house so it could withstand a tornado. By the time Sophie was walking, all of that nailing furniture to the wall, moving everything above three feet, locking toilets so even adults couldn't break in... well, it all seemed kinda silly. Like we'd been duped by a Babies R Us childproofing salesperson. So when we moved to the new house we put plugs in the outlets and that was about it. Our little baby Maddie was so quiet and content to be in one place that it seemed all was well.

Now we've learned that our un-gated staircase is Madelyn's favorite place in the house. She squeals with delight as she crawls full-speed on the top landing towards the stairs. We spent a couple days really working with her, and she's figured out how to go down the stairs pretty safely. But whereas Sophia would turn around six feet before the top stair and scoot backwards, Maddie likes to hang on to that top stair, balancing precariously on the edge as she turns around. Then she flies down.

When she gets to the bottom, Madelyn likes to stand up at large planter at the base of the stairs and eat the dirt. When she's done, she's been known to make her way to the bathroom where she likes to clean the floor with the toilet scrubber. Then sometimes she heads to the laundry room to try some of Daisy's puppy food. Or maybe dump Daisy's water dish all over the floor and herself. Depends on her mood.

One handy thing about having two kids though - tattling! It's not really tattling yet, and I find it very helpful, but I know it's going to be a problem in the future: if Maddie so much as looks at something she's not supposed to have, Sophie shouts out, "Maddie going to stairs!" or "Maddie going to plant!" You've heard of Big Brother, well this is Big Sister! You'd better watch your step, Maddie.

Sophie will be the first to tell you though, "I'm a good sister." The other day in the car when Madelyn was crying, Sophie broke her rice cake in half and asked Daddy to give half to Madelyn to make her happy. In church, Sophie ate the peel off her apple slices and gave bite-sized pieces to her sister. Those kinds of things just melt my heart.

And Sophia is acting and talking like such a girl now, no longer a toddler. Her questions start with "Can I..." She buckles herself in her car seat. She picks what she wants to eat and wear and how I should do her hair. She helps Maddie brush her teeth and get dressed. She's still such a little mother: her babies are often found tucked in bed with a blankie, after Sophia has sung them a lullaby. Oh, and she's singing so many songs now. It's adorable to listen to "Twinkle, twinkle," "Wheels on the Bus," and all of our old favorites. I'm amazed at the variety of animals she thinks of for "Old McDonald."

One last hurdle of toddlerhood: potty training. Starting Thursday afternoon, we're cancelling everything for a week to stay home and focus on potty training. I'm confident that if we just work on it consistently Sophie will get it in no time. Any hints though, please post them! I'll need all the help I can get!

Sophia WoW: "We'll see or not." Sometimes a question, sometimes a statement; I'm never quite sure what this means!

Madelyn WoW: "Day-see!" Now, this may look like the Word of the Week from our last posting, but in that instance she was referring to dogs. We discovered yesterday that Day-see must mean any animal. We met Erika & Evan's (Brian's sister and her husband) new cats, Zod and Rumpus, yesterday and Maddie started pointing and exclaiming, "Day-see! Day-see!" By the end of the day it got close to "Key" for kitty.

P.S. Brian and I celebrated our sixth anniversary this weekend, and I just want to put in writing what a lucky and blessed woman I am. My husband continues to treat me the same way he did when we met 10 years ago. He takes better care of me and our girls than I ever could have imagined (and that's saying something because I started with high standards! :) He is kind and funny and supportive and loving and handsome as can be!! I love you, Brian James, and I always will!

Happy Birthday Madelyn!!

2007-09-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

I hate it when I wait so long between postings that, were I to tell you everything I wanted to since the last time I'd written, my post would be a mile long. It seems that always happens when we're so busy that if I recorded everything, my post would be a mile long. Sigh. The dilemmas of a part-time blogger, full-time mom.

So quick recap (in mostly chronological order):

Maddie got her hair cut and I actually have pictures to upload now. I didn't realize until too late that I forgot the "after" shot. Whoops. :(

Daisy is growing like crazy, and she and Salish are getting along better and better every day. (Daisy's loved and adored Salish from the first minute; it's just been the "old" dog who's been slow to warm to her new puppy friend.) Now they hang out for hours at a time outside, curl up to nap together, share food, all those good dog-buddy things.

We got a new love seat for our "formal" living room, with a chair and ottoman to come shortly. Brian and I agree it's our favorite piece of furniture that we've bought in a long time. It's leather - who knew - very comfy, and it's in a great room with perfect lighting for reading and napping.

The last time I posted, I was about to head into LASIK surgery, and tomorrow I head back for my three-week check-up. It is amazing. Truly. The procedure itself was painless, although if there are alien abductions, I'm pretty sure that's what they do to you. It was pretty surreal. But then you sit up, and although it's foggy, you can see across the room. The next morning it was crystal clear, and I haven't had any problems since. One of my eyes was already 20/15 the next day and they expected it to get better. (The other eye was 20/20!) Amazing! I've been blind since 2nd grade and now I can see! I'd highly recommend it. (Thanks again Mel!!)

We headed to Cannon Beach, Oregon, for four days to celebrate Madelyn's first birthday! We had a wonderful, although very chaotic, time. On this trip Brian & I discovered much about ourselves, our children and how our family works. Here are a few of our lessons learned:

* In the future, we should probably travel with dogs or kids, not dogs and kids... (although Salish was the best-behaved of the bunch.)

* In the future, we should also stay five days, rather than four. It seems the first day is chaotic (sometimes hell) with the driving and getting settled in. The second day we try to do too much. The third day we figure out what works for us and the girls and have a great time. The fourth day we have to leave. If we had just one more day, we could really have a lot of fun!

* Sophia & Madelyn not only look completely different, but they act completely differently too. Sophie is afraid to get herself or anything she must touch dirty; Madelyn likes to crawl in and eat sand. Sophie is afraid of loud noises like buzzers, trains and trucks; Madelyn doesn't seem to notice. Sophia is afraid of heights like her dad (a fact that made Brian quite proud); Madelyn doesn't seem to notice. (In fact, she thinks it's fun to topple down stairs. Someone will catch her!)

* Beagle puppies attract a lot of attention. We couldn't go 20 feet without meeting someone who wanted to pet and meet Daisy. At first this was fun and we were proud. By the end of the trip, when people we interrupting our meals to talk to Daisy, we were ready to scream. If only she weren't so darn cute.

* Sophie talks in her sleep, a lot. She ended up sleeping with us, so Brian and I got to listen in all night long. She often just says "No!" or "Mommy!" But sometimes it was things like "Tickle my legs!" while she flailed about. And once, "Maddie crying. Daddy make Maddie stop crying."

* Sophie is also quite astute in the car. After visiting a gift shop/restaurant/wine & dip tasting/petting zoo, Madelyn was crying in the car. Sophie noted quite matter-of-factly, "Maddie sounds like a rooster." Later Brian was singing Kum Ba Ya (Madelyn's lullaby, to which we often make up words to change it up), and he sang, "Someone's grumpy Lord, Kum Ba Ya..." and Sophie replied, "It's Maddie, Daddy."

* Madelyn has entered the loud phase. If you've had kids, you probably remember this as the stage where every time you go out to eat, you swear you'll never go out to eat again.

But in between all of that we had a wonderful family time. The weather was amazing and the beach was beautiful. Our hotel was a little cramped so the dogs had to sleep in the car, but it had a great deck where Brian and I snuck off to after the girls had fallen asleep. We could drink wine, eat chocolate, read our books and watch the sun set. We built sand castles (well, really just big lumps of sand) and spent hours running into and out of the water - a favorite game for both Sophie & Salish. Another funny story quick: after we'd put the girls to bed one night, we were sitting out on the deck and we listened in periodically to make sure all was quiet. It was, so we sat out there about three hours. When we came in we heard a faint "thud, thud" from our room. We get back there, and Sophia is having the time of her life, flopping over on the bed and jumping around. She was all sweaty and full of energy, and apparently had been at it for three hours. Sigh.

Ok - now Maddie's birthday party. She had a great time. Loved the balloons, and really loved the cake! It was hilarious, and we had to carry her quickly and carefully into the bath immediately afterwards. She wasn't too interested in her presents, but Sophie was, asking every time, "This for me?" and reminding us, "My birthday coming up in January!"

We also threw a surprise 40th anniversary party for Brian's parents this weekend and it was a rousing success. A great crowd, lots of fun people, good food, beautiful old pictures of Hans & Mary, and most importantly, a huge surprise for them too. It was tons of fun, and we again congratulate them on 40 wonderful years and wish them many, many more!!

I'm sure I've forgotten a few things, but I'm also sure you've been reading this for an hour now. Things should slow down soon. I hope! :)

Sophia WoW: "Wathclosh." I realized a couple weeks ago that what we thought was such a clear word, "washcloth," was actually pronounced a bit dyslexic-ly.

Madelyn WoW: "Day-see." Poor Salish. She's been with Maddie her whole life, and this new little pup is here two weeks and Maddie can say her name. What's worse, she seems to think "day-see" means dog, because she says it whenever she sees a pooch. It's pretty cute though! She loves her puppy!

News, news, news!

2007-08-30T11:44:00.001-07:00

Oh man, so much to tell and so little time. Things have been very busy here lately and it looks like they'll remain that way through October at least!

Here's a quick recap, hopefully with more to come soon:

* I'm getting LASIK eye surgery in about 3 hours! Yay! It happened kind of suddenly because I had a pre-screening on Tuesday and that day found out that if we could schedule the surgery for August (i.e. three possible days left!) we'd save $1400. We jumped on it, and as of 3:00 today I won't need glasses anymore! Having had them since 2nd grade, I can't quite imagine life without them, but I CAN'T WAIT!! (Gave you as my reference Mel! :)

* Maddie got her first haircut today! She turns one on the 7th (oh my!!) and was getting a little "shaggy-dog." She looks just darling now and did great. Sophie helped document the whole thing, so hopefully I'll post pictures soon.

* Maddie is also crawling!! Finally. She's a year in a week and she's just figured it out. Goofball. She's also cruising though, so I'm guessing crawling won't last long for this little one.

* One of my bestest friends Melissa got engaged last weekend to the most wonderful guy, Brandon, and we couldn't be happier for either of them!! Yay!

* We spent last weekend in Pullman, WA, and even though it was mostly a trip from hell -- the girls didn't travel well and Maddie didn't sleep well, which meant none of us slept well -- I'm still glad we went! We got to see my cousin Rachel play Division I Volleyball at WSU and it was great! Sophie has a new idol, and she's been practicing her volleyball dives to be just like Rae-Rae!

* Now we've got this eye surgery, then a trip to Cannon Beach next week over Madelyn's birthday, then fall starts with co-op preschool for Sophia, Little Gym, Church Council, Sunday School, volunteering for Brian, and all the rest. Oh my!

Little helpers

2007-08-20T14:38:00.000-07:00

I don't know if it's the ages the girls are at, or if it's because of the recent addition of Daisy (and hence even more chaos than usual), or if it's the weather (which stinks, by the way!) but things around our house have been crazy lately. In a good way. Most of the time.

Random hilarious things keep happening or being said, and it seems Brian and I both walk around with stunned looks on our faces most of the time. The kind of look people have when they don't get enough sleep. And have way too much to do. And aren't quite sure what's going on.

I'm trying hard to remember all these stories, so here they are in Reader's Digest form. Because we all know I have way too much to do to be typing this right now! :)

* Brian was taking a bath with the girls the other day and suddenly noticed that Madelyn had peed on him. He calmly told me what had happened, and Sophia, always perceptive, said, "Maddie peed on you? Can I pee on you?"

* As I was about to take Daisy out for a potty break, Sophia noticed Daisy needed more food. I told her to wait for me and I would let her scoop it out for Daisy. Always quick to help, of course Sophia couldn't wait that long. Suddenly the door swings open and Sophia's crying, "I spilled! I spilled!" I thought, "Of course you did," but had no idea. When I walked in the entire bag had spilled on the floor, and Daisy was in paradise. (You have to click on this picture and enlarge it. Sophia's face is hilarious!)

* Sophia loves Otter Pops (frozen popsicle-like things) and she also loves matching colors. If she's eating green grapes, she needs a green bowl, etc. The other day she told Brian, "I have pink one. Just like your nipples."

*Daisy's having so much fun. The other day she just passed out in the dog toy bin.

*Salish seems intimidated by Daisy so far. She tries her best to just keep her distance, and when we force the issue, she growls and runs away. It's hilarious because Daisy is all of five pounds, and last week when Salish's friend Jack was here she totally dominated him even though he's got to be about 70 pounds. Go figure.

*We haven't yet figured out who is going to hurt whom more: Daisy or Madelyn. Maddie loves to pull her hair and ears, and Daisy seems to think Maddie's calves would make great chew toys. (In Daisy's defense, they do really look like you could sink your teeth into them!)

* Brian and I have given up on time and order lately, so when Maddie's birthday present arrived in the mail the other day, we gave it to her. It's a little wagon that she and Sophie can use together (they borrowed one in South Dakota that they just loved) so we thought they'd better use it while the weather's still nice anyway. And then fall arrived early this week. Sigh.

* Not really funny, but news: Maddie's starting to cruise! Slowly but surely she's taking steps here and there. She really may skip that whole crawling thing.

Sophia WoW: "Honey." Everything is honey lately: "You want your toy honey?" "Careful honey." "Here you go honey." She is such a little mother, and always has been. Cracks me up. (And in case you're wondering, honey usually refers to Maddie or Daisy. She hasn't called Brian or I honey. Yet.)

Madelyn Wow: "Daa." This is hard to convey by typing, but it's not quite da like dada or da like day ... something in between. But it refers to Daisy! She says it whenever she sees the puppy! I think we're considering this her first word other than mama and dada!!

Meet Daisy

2007-08-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

Well, this confirms it. Brian and I are officially crazy. Either that or we just like our lives to be really, really busy...

Yesterday on the way home from church we stopped by the pet store, just to look, and well... they had some really, really adorable beagle puppies! We've been talking about getting a puppy for months now, but just last week I told Brian we needed to wait until after the first of the year. Then we saw these puppies (did I mention they were cute??) And before you know it, this little 7-week old beagle puppy was in our car with us!

We've named her Daisy and she seems to fit right in. She's a total sweetheart, and Salish took right to her. Salish has a friend Jack staying this week too while some friends of ours are in Disneyland, and Jack seems quite fond of little Daisy too.

She seem to think my Boppy pillow is the perfect place to curl up for a nap, and Sophie made sure she was tucked in and had her bone for when she woke up. Madelyn seems to love her too, although we're not sure yet which we need to be afraid of around the other! Of course, as a puppy Daisy likes to chew with her sharp little puppy teeth, and Madelyn likes to grab and pull things - especially soft furry things. They seem to be doing very well together so far though.

And Daisy's first night at home went better than I could have hoped. Brian got her to sleep by sticking his finger in her kennel to comfort her around 9:00. I got up with her at 1 a.m., but that was as much because Salish needed to go out as it was because Daisy was up. Then Brian let her out when he got up around 4, and when I came down with Madelyn at 6:45 she was sound asleep in her crate. She's had great fun playing with the "big kids" (i.e. Jack & Salish) this morning, and now she's curled up in a fuzzy little ball on my lap.

In other news, Madelyn is making big strides now that she's turned 11 months. (If you need help with the math, that means her birthday is in less than a month! Yikes! When did our baby get so big?!?) She's popped her 8th tooth and she's started cruising, albeit very slowly. She doesn't seem to trust her feet entirely yet, but she's trying them out. Still no crawling, but she's an expert at scooting backwards, and she's getting up on her knees more and more. She used her first sign language the other day too, telling us she was "all done" eating!! Hopefully she'll discover more signs soon because she gets frustrated pretty easily with that and with the whole crawling thing!

Sophia WoW: Daisy! Sophie really seems to love her new friend! :)

Madelyn WoW: "Smack!" She loves to smack her lips now and things she's quite funny when she does!

We're back!

2007-07-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a fun-filled, action-packed South Dakota vacation, and I'm not even sure where to begin. As often happens when my Mom and I get together, there are about 500 pictures to wade through so it's hard to decide which ones to post. I'll do my best!

We were back there this time for my cousin Amy's wedding to John Eldridge. As matron of honor, I got to help throw her bachelorette party and a shower just a couple days after we arrived. We had a great time living it up in downtown Brookings, and Amy was the perfect bachelorette! :) Brian was disappointed that he was a guy that night, but somehow he and my cousin Brett managed to crash our party. I think we were all glad to have them there though, especially when random drunk guys started getting a little too friendly!

A couple days later Brian and I left the girls in the very capable hands of Heidi, Anja, Mom and Randy so we could fly to Chicago for our first grown-up weekend since Sophia was born. Of course, Brian and I missed the girls terribly but we still managed to have a great time. We took an architectural cruise on the Chicago River where we learned all sorts of interesting things about Chicago's history and saw some amazing buildings. We also went to Second City, a comedy club where many Saturday Night Live alumni got their start -- it was hilarious! We really enjoyed eating out without making sure we had Cheerios and diapers and milk and toys and PJs and Cheerios and wipes and Cheerios and... You get the idea. It was quite relaxing. Plus the girls had such a fabulous time in Brookings, that I don't think they missed us too much.

Brookings just built a brand-new water park with all sorts of fountains and water toys for little ones, and since it's just a couple blocks from my Mom's house, the girls spent lots of time there. Heidi and Anja watched them during the day, while Mom and Randy loved showing them off in the evenings.

Once we got back to South Dakota, it was time for more showers, rehearsal and finally the wedding. It was a beautiful day and Amy was a breathtaking bride. (John was quite handsome too, by the way!) Sophia was the flower girl, and she did as good as we could have possibly hoped. Heidi turned her into a princess (Sophia looked in the mirror when she was dressed and said, "Mommy, I look like princess!"), complete with tiara from Amy. She patiently waited her turn and then walked slowly down the aisle. When she got to the steps of the altar, she sat down her basket next to me, then plopped down in her beautiful dress to sit and wait for Amy and John. Once they were there, Sophie ran back to sit with Daddy. Apparently during the vows she decided she wanted to come back up to me, so Brian had to use every trick in the book to get her to wait. Finally she came running back up and had me hold her for the rest of the service (fortunately not too long!) Then when it was her turn she walked back down the aisle like an old pro! (Maddie spent the entire service asleep in Grandma's arms!)

The reception was just beautiful too. Everyone in the wedding party gave little speeches, and Brian tells me that Sophie stood up to applaud me and said, "Good job Mommy!" Then she came up and tried to steal the microphone for her own speech. "I do it!" Things turned a little ugly when we wouldn't let her, but she quickly recovered. Then Grandma and I took Sophie and Maddie back to the hotel with a babysitter so that we could all dance the night away, and dance we did. They had an awesome DJ, and they nearly had to kick us out at closing time. What a wonderful weekend!

A couple days after that it was time for us to head home already. I think we are all in a little bit of withdrawal, missing having at least six pairs of hands to handle the girls at all times. But, we all had a great time and have lots (and I mean LOTS) of pictures to remember our trip with.

Sophie WoW: "Band-eggs" This means band-aids, which Sophia is requiring many of lately. I'm not sure if she's just over-eager, in an awkward stage, or is just tired from all the fun in SoDak, but the girl keeps falling. She's skinned up her knees at least once a day for the last several days, and she keeps falling off chairs and small steps. Nothing too serious yet, but she always demands a "band-egg."

Madelyn WoW: Her words are pretty much the same (mama, dada, baba, nana, ppbbllttt, etc.) but she's saying them with more teeth. The girl popped three new teeth while we were in SoDak!

Happy 'Pendence Day!

2007-07-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was just one of those perfect days. The weather was beautiful, and we headed off in the morning to go raspberry picking with our good friends (and old neighbors) the Striblings. After an hour and several pounds of raspberries later (Madelyn must have eaten at least a couple dozen!) we went back to their house for a BBQ and to watch the kids (and dogs) swim and run through the sprinkler. We had planned to head home by nap time, but we were having so much fun that eventually Madelyn fell asleep in Brian's arms. She was so tired that he was able to transfer her to Jack the dog's bed where she slept for a good hour! Sophie of course couldn't get enough of the water and the big kids who were so much fun and paid her so much attention. Oh, and the food! So yummy! My friend Heather is such an amazing hostess -- she even makes a cake with the flag made out of raspberries and blueberries! It truly couldn't have been a better day. Sophia was so tired when we headed home about 5:30 that she fell asleep eating in the car. Poor thing had a rice cake half hanging out of her mouth and was just out! (Sorry I didn't get a picture of that one!)

And while my time to write is brief, I do want to share what an amazing, incredible, thoughtful, fun, unique and ... amazing husband I have!!! He treats me (and our girls) so well, and I know I am so blessed. For my birthday last week he arranged to have the Striblings babysit the girls (that's a whole other story - Madelyn, her teeth and her new found separation anxiety all culminated in her throwing up on Ken! Uff! :) Anyway, he hired a chef to come to our house and cook the two of us an amazing four-course dinner while we sat out on the deck and enjoyed a bottle of wine together. It was the most peaceful meal I've had in... well, two and a half years. And the yummiest I've had in a long time. The next morning Brian took all of us to the Salish Lodge at Snoqualmie Falls for their country breakfast - one of my all-time favorite meals! What a guy! Thank you Brian!!

And finally, welcome to the world, Ethan Andrew! We can't wait to meet you! And have fun being a big brother Jacob! :)

Sophia WoW: "Sump-in." Means "something." Usually it's used to describe sump-in she seems on the floor or wall or in the bath or in her bed... Some speck of dirt or a hair that most human eyes cannot detect. Can also be used as a question. For example, "Mom have sump-in." means "What are you eating Mom? Could it be chocolate?"

Madelyn WoW: While we still hear dada, mama, nana and baba, the "Ppppllllbbbttt!" seems to be back in fashion, complete with lots and lots of drool. Oh my.

Funny girls

2007-06-22T16:05:00.001-07:00

I honestly don't think life can get much better. Sure things are constantly hectic, often quite loud, and usually messy, but our girls make us laugh so much these days... Here's just a sampling of the hilarious and heartwarming events of the last few weeks (i.e. the ones I can remember):

* The other day Salish licked Sophie's foot and she squealed, "Salish licked mine paw!"

* Madelyn has popped her top two teeth (with another two on the way shortly I think). One is in a little further than the other and there's a bit of a gap. Her smile just cracks me up.

* One time when Sophie was running across the living room she tripped and face-planted the floor. Madelyn, watching from her Exersaucer, just burst our laughing.

* Even though Madelyn doesn't have much more than fluff for hair, Sophie loves combing it and playing with it. The other day she even managed to get a clip in!

* Everything - and I mean everything is "I do it" these days for Sophia. She gets herself dressed (pants, shirt, shoes, everything), she brushes her own teeth (and then I do it again), she pours her own milk (with a little help), she even buckles herself in her carseat!

* Since she dresses herself, she usually likes to pick what she wears. I'm able to influence her decisions regarding shirt and pants, but I've given in on the shoes and socks. So as often as she can, Sophie wears her orange socks and her black church shoes (seen here without socks.)

* When I was feeding Madelyn, she kicked the bowl with her foot and I nearly dumped the whole thing. I gasped as it fell, but luckily I caught it. Sophia, who was eating breakfast at the other side of the table said, "Oh! My fault."

*Madelyn has apparently developed a mean streak, as you can see from the next few pictures. :) The first two are on Father's Day, with both girls in shirts honoring their Daddy. The third is Madelyn's new favorite face, which she makes while breathing quickly in and out of her nose. (Blogger won't let me rotate it, so you'll just have to turn your head. Sorry! :)

* Brian thinks I'm a bad influence because one night while I was gone (at church, mind you!) Sophia was putting on her PJs while Brian was feeding Maddie a bottle. Suddenly Sophie started muttering "Oh crap. Oh crap." under her breath because she'd put her foot in the arm hole. Brian claims she said it 10 times. Whoops.

* A couple weeks ago the girls and I took Salish to the vet for a checkup and ended up having to leave her there to have a mole-ish thing removed from her head. Sophie blew a gasket when we left because she didn't to tell Salish goodbye and she didn't know what was happening to her. Several hours later, we picked Salish up with a shaved patch on her head and a few stitches. Sophie of course gave it lots of kisses to make it all better.

* Five days later, Madelyn had a doctor's visit and when I told Sophie where we were going, her eyes got huge and she stammered, "Maddie no, Maddie no, Maddie no... Maddie no owie head?" She was afraid poor Maddie was going to have to get shaved and stitched too, because apparently that's what happens at the doctor's office.

* Speaking of Madelyn's checkup - it was her 9-month well-baby exam, where she weighed in at 18 pounds, 7 ounces (40th percentile) and 25 1/2" (3rd percentile.) That's right - she's our compact little girl. They even measured twice to make sure!

Sisters

2007-06-02T13:18:00.000-07:00

When Brian and I decided to start trying for our second baby, we planned to have them close together hoping that they would grow into good friends. So far we've been amazed at how much the girls love each other already! Granted they haven't yet reached the stage of sibling rivalry and bickering, but it is incredible the bond our two little girls share already.

Whenever either one wakes up, she tends to be a bit moody, unless her sister is there. Yesterday Sophia woke up from a nap and I went in to get her carrying Madelyn. Maddie started bouncing in my arms as we neared the door, and when I opened it, Sophia didn't even look at me. She was already smiling at and talking to her sister. She pushes away the sheets and says, "Maddie sit. Maddie want toys." So I bring a few toys into bed and they play there together, happy as can be.

Whenever Madelyn starts crying, Sophie is almost always right there with a Cheerio, toy or her finger to chew on. Sometimes she'll start singing to Maddie or dancing for her to make her laugh. And no one can make Maddie laugh like Sophia. From the early days of shouting "Hey Bubba" over and over, to now dancing Ring Around the Roses or just running in circles, Sophie can always get Maddie to crack a smile, or crack up as the case may be.

Yesterday I foolishly left Madelyn on the changing table while I went to her closet. Even as I crossed the room I thought, "I shouldn't be leaving her like that anymore." But I did, and you guessed it - she fell off. I saw it in slow motion - Maddie diving head first off the table, turning over and landing on her back, thankfully. I almost caught her but not quite. She was okay, but cried pretty hard of course. Sophia was right there with much concern and lots of kisses. About 11 hours later when Brian got home (He moved offices this week so has been putting in some seriously long hours. We miss him!!), Sophie told him without any prompting about Maddie's "big owie."

Oh, and Maddie's working on popping both of her top two teeth at the same time. For some reason that makes her seem very grown up to me, and makes me sad. Both of my girls have grown so much. I try hard to capture every precious moment, but they are so fleeting. Before I know it they all mesh together into one stream of moments: sometimes challenging, sometimes hilarious, but always wonderful. It's an amazing thing to watch your infant grow into a baby, your baby grow into a toddler, and your toddler grow into a little girl.

Finally, my little cousin Amanda is getting married today in South Dakota. We so wish we could be there. We wish Amanda and Jason many, many happy years together and God's blessings on their lives!

Sophia WoW: "Just like me." This is a fun phrase because Sophie is comparing things all of the time. What color everyone's dishes, clothes, shoes, hair... are; what abilities various people possess; what toys kids are playing with; etc. But it's a new big-girl phrase because it used to be "just like Sophs," but she's referring to herself as "I" and "me" more and more. Sigh.

Madelyn WoW: "Dada!!!" She started saying dada in the car and Sophie was the first to notice. She told me that Madelyn was excited for Daddy to come home. Me too, Madelyn, me too. :)

Vacations!

2007-05-25T12:57:00.000-07:00

I should be packing now, as we're heading up to Lake Tyee for a mini-vacation this holiday weekend, but it's been far too long since my last post again. Last weekend we drove up to Whistler for a four-day weekend, and yesterday my aunt Karen, uncle Dale and cousins Samantha and Nathaniel came in on the train from South Dakota to stay for a few days. (They're headed south to Tacoma for the weekend while we head north to the RV.) So needless to say, things have been busy, busy, busy!

We had a fabulous time in Whistler though! The car ride went smoothly, even though it took eight hours rather than the MapQuest-promised four. That might have had something to do with our little ones though. Oh, and a two-hour wait at the border coming home. Ugh. But while there we enjoyed lots of quiet family time, some hiking, some swimming, and lots of eating! We're hoping to repeat that this weekend at the lake.

Ok, so I just posted this entry and went to look at it and I saw Brian's previous post. What a way to make a girl's day!! I loved that Carolyn Hax column that my friend Andrea forwarded to us, but I loved Brian's note even more. He's a little too modest himself. That boy wakes up at 4:00 a.m. every weekday to pay bills and get things done so that when he gets home from work his time is reserved just for us. I feel so very blessed to lead the life that I do, with my wonderful husband and my amazing girls. I wouldn't change it for the world!! (Thank you Bri. :)

But speaking of stay-at-home moms... I'm thinking we need a new name. Who really stays home anyway? And homemaker... I'm not building homes. Family manager? Home supervisor? Post your suggestions and maybe we'll coin a new name that better describes what we really do!

Happy weekend!