Giving Thanks

Thankful to finally have a good photo of both kids who I adore so much.

Thankful for the terrible twos and the preparation it's giving us for teenage-hood.

Thankful Allie has shown signs of starting to sleep more at night.

Thankful for federal holidays, and all the time we get to see Mark.

Thankful for the abundance of dishes we get to wash, and the hot water that flows easily from the faucet.

Thankful for a small house to clean and working radiator heaters.

Thankful to have so many family members and friends we want to spend Thanksgiving with.

Thankful someone thought of creating a substitute for butter, and that I've never had to use it before this week.

Thankful for antibiotics, stickers and health.

And on to finding excellent fruit pie recipes.

Allie Love

Time for some Allie love. Recently, this girl is full of sweet coos and gurgles. She even will coo at Jackson when he remembers to say "Hiii AAAlllliie!" with a reasonable amount of space between his nose and hers. When they talk to each other, my heart melts. Two happy kids is more than I ask for most days.

Allie is especially chatty at night. Likely because it's the time when I stop and focus on her. She seems to like to talk to someone (not just at the air--go figure). I caught this video last night, after talking to her for a good 5-10 min. Maneuvering the camera was a bit tricky, since she won't talk unless there's eye contact. So, I rigged the camera from above, but you'll have to forgive the lack of focus.

I'm in love with the little coos, the giggle, and those smiles. My favorite it how she slowly works up to her spit up that comes at the end. So telling of her calm personality.

Ever since I went off dairy, she has changed from an often pained, high-pitched screaming child who couldn't keep much down, to this little angel who slowly works up to her state of fussiness or discomfort. She certainly still has her special days, but majority of the time she is happy to be around the action, and happy to go to sleep when she's tired. The slow transitions are so different from Jackson who is still a 0-60 type of kid. Happy to Armageddon in 2 seconds flat. Giving up cheese and my plain yogurt during these warm and cozy months has been quite limiting on my cooking cuisine, but it is SO worth it to have this cheery little gal around to brighten our dark little house.

Her hair is also starting to brighten... be on the lookout for a lighter-haired Allie in a few months. (Baby hair is so bizarre!)

Halloween Fun!

Apparently the 5th pumpkin in  "5 Little Pumpkins" says, "I'm ready for some fun," not "It's Halloween Fun." And I thought I was such a good mom for teaching him holiday appropriate rhymes! He picked up "Halloween Fun" as quickly as he did trick or treating, and has been saying all month, "Halloween Fun?" Poor kid is going to be terribly confused in preschool next October.

We have had lots of that Halloween fun this year. Beside making all our decorations (various kinds of paper Jack o Lanterns with eyes in interesting spots), we got to go to our church's Halloween party all dressed up.

This year, we were all facets of our personality. Can you figure out what everyone is and why?




Mark the cowboy [his ranching past]; Jackson the "Track Star" [who will never stop running]; Allie the cute little Pumpkin; and I am opera singer [bonus points if you know the character's name]

Mark was a bit sick for pumpkin carving night, so Jackson and I took it on with enthusiasm. 




Jackson drew his own face right on the pumpkin, and Brunhilde made a second appearance this Halloween.

For sure the highlight of the month, was watching two 2 year olds trick or treat. It was pretty much straight "Halloween Fun."

Little Lilia the Lion, joined Jackson the Track Star in pounding on doors in our neighborhood [every door received multiple enthusiastic knocks from both kids]. They both would have been satisfied with the first candy they got, but the parents enjoyed watching their total innocent faces figure this thing out. Should have video taped it. Jackson now requests to go "trick or treating" everyday. Who could blame him?



Our cute little pumpkin was not as excited about the holiday, but she thankfully fell asleep for the door to door excursion which made everyone's life easier. 

Most of the candy has been consumed by the resident cowboy, but even without the candy, everyone but the pumpkin can't wait until next year's Halloween FUN! [As I wrote this Jackson continued to say that line, and ask if he and Lilia were going trick or treating tonight.]

Pumpkin "Patch"

Jackson, Allie and I went out to Cox Farms this past week. Jackson and I are participating in a joy school-like cooperative pre-school we're calling Pee Wees. [My friend Kari has a nice summation of what we're doing on her blog]. I was in charge of teaching the past 2 weeks, so of course we used the book "Pumpkin Pumpkin," and took a field trip to the pumpkin patch to connect to real life. Cox farms is definitely the closest farm to get pumpkins at (40 min away), but I went in totally ignorant of pumpkin patching on the East Coast. It's nothing like the pumpkin patch of my youth. It's more of a fall festival out in the country and you get a token mini pumpkin on your way out. I missed the actual going out into the field to pick pumpkins, but there is definitely some merit to grabbing a pumpkin on the way out. Too bad the 9$ admission only bought the 1$ pumpkin '(such smart business people).

The place was packed, despite a rainy morning and a drizzly afternoon. Mud and gray skies were no deterrent for Jackson. He was in heaven, except the 8 times he turfed it in the mud, and when he was attacked by goats.

(Here is Jackson being rescued from the goats after he sat down thinking their play structure was a slide. Woops! It's not, and apparently the goats love to nibble and lick humans who are sitting down in their territory. Jackson recounts the experience by saying "Da Goats ate me!)



There were tons of hill slides everywhere. I can not believe how confident Jackson was on each one. I went down the first one with him,

 and he was ready!

This slide was my favorite. See the line in the back? Does Jackson understand lines? Of course not. He wanted to go down the slide, so he innocently made his way up to the front, and weaseled his way into a position to go down. His little toddler body meandering through the line was adorable and terribly embarrassing for Allie and I waiting at the bottom. He was quite anxious to go do that one again, but I dutifully redirected his attention, since I didn't want to wait in the 15 min. line either. 

 When it started raining, and most of the slides closed down. Jackson had no problem finding something to do: throw rocks in the puddles of course!

We came home muddied and tired but full of plenty of fun pumpkin memories or err... slide memories. And little miss Allie? Ya, she was awake for 80% of the day. Who would want to miss out on all that fun?!

Feeling Blessed

Mark blessed Allie this weekend. It's hard to describe how it feels to hear my husband pronounce a blessing on our child. Pride is the wrong word. The feeling is closer to peaceful gratitude as I listened to beautiful words full of emotion, vision and spirit.

We were blessed to have a ton of family come to the ordinance. We have started to accumulate a number of cousins in the area, and they were all awesome and came to support Allie and us. My parents were also able to fly in for a short visit to be here for the day. Our next door neighbors even made it to the service! Jackson, was pretty convinced everyone was there to see him, since he had non-stop attention from the g'parents, friends, and my adorable younger cousins for the entire day. Thankfully, he slept in Sunday morning, so he was able to last the day without a nap.

With all his blessed attention, he really struggled to stay still long enough to take a family picture. Still working on that! But at least we're all smiling :)

Allie was a super trooper and didn't mind getting passed around to adoring hands. She even managed to keep her dress (the same dress I was blessed in!) clean the entire time. Woah!

Household Maturing

Today, I went to the dentist. The dental assistant made a comment that caused me to reflect on the maturing state of our household. After having met me, and then looking at my papers, she said "wow! you're so young!" I didn't really know how to react to that, because I had no idea what prompted her to say it. Did she look at my birthday and think I just looked a lot older than my 27 years? Did she think I was young to have just had a baby? Or was she surprised by how recently 1985 seemed? [I must admit it's weird I have a few good friends who were born in the 90's.] I did the only logical thing I could think of, and said "thank you," not really knowing what was the appropriate thing to say.

Age is so relative, it's hard to ever feel consistently "old" or "young" if you interact with a wide variety of people. When I was younger, I loved having older friends and being mistaken as their same age. I think I felt some pride in my ability to fool others. I realize this will likely change at some point, at least in the opposite direction. Luckily for the dental assistant, I haven't hit that point. Despite my gray hairs, I still enjoy feeling older than I am. It is likely still due to the fact I have a lot of good friends in their 30s and 40s, and there are times I feel like such a baby when we start talking about culture specifics from childhood.

Watching my kids mature, has been similar but different. I have a hard time relating to so many of my friends who lament their children getting older. So far, I just get excited to learn more about their hidden little personalities, and thrilled they're growing and developing and becoming less dependent on me and my arms. I'm guessing this will change, but boy I love watching these kiddos grow.

Allie definitely wins on the rate of maturing in our house. At a mere 7 weeks she looks like a 3 month old to me. I love that she's holding up her head more, smiling more and sleeping through the night more. I'm not thrilled that her daily weight gain keeps making it harder to bounce her to sleep when she's really over tired.



Jackson proved his maturity by surviving a weekend of LDS General Conference. Essentially, instead of church, we watch a broadcasted conference from Salt Lake, on Saturday and Sunday. In the past, we've been able to time watching it around his naps. This year he was awake for 7 1/2 hours of the 8 hours we watched. WHEW! Quite the trooper.We were stunned by how much he actually enjoyed it. At the end of the first 2 sessions he cried when we turned it off! During 80% of the speaking time, he played nicely by himself, and during the choir numbers he took this attentive pose:

Perhaps he has an unusual attraction to music, or perhaps he just is terribly screen deprived and will take it in any form it comes.

So what about Mark? Since we've been married, he's given up corn dogs, sugared cereal and oreos. I would say this is maturity, though arguments could be made for a "maturing" metabolism. Whatever the reason, it's nice to know our whole house will keep getting older, grayer, and hopefully wiser, all together.

Smiles

There is little that brings greater joy than seeing your 5 1/2 week old recognize you, and give 3 gigantic smiles while sitting on someone else's lap. Oh elation.

Allie started smiling consistently last week, and we're in heaven everytime she flashes one. 

 

Jackson's also [thankfully] started the pose-for-the-camera phase that most 2 year olds seem to go through. We're grateful because it means we can take pictures of him without trying to hide the camera--we just lose the candid smile.

At our house, we celebrate smiles any way they come.