We seem to be regressing a bit in the “big
girl” department. Eve has been in her pack-in-play for awhile
now, instead of the toddler bed. For awhile she loved the
toddler bed, but now she only wants the PNP. I really want to
get her back in the bed, but it is nice having her confined,
especially since she’s been particularly fiesty lately and
today has decided to take no nap! I’ll be putting her in the
car soon for a drive to see if that helps with the nap efforts
:) She is also completely back to diapers. I think her stomach
thing was a big set back. With three days of throwing up
followed by a week of diarrhea I had her in diapers the entire
time. Now she asks to wear underwear, sometimes, but refuses to
sit on the potty. Not sure if she’s scared, worried, stubborn,
or maybe just the “newness” of the potty has worn off and
diapers are easier for her. At BJs yesterday she found a bag of
“potty treats” (jelly beans) and wanted to buy them. I told her
we could buy them if she would earn them by sitting on the
potty. She said “no thank you” and put them back on the shelf!!
Sigh. I’m eager to get back to the toddler bed and underwear,
but I keep reminding myself that she’s not even two (yet!!) and
still very young for both efforts. Maybe she was just teasing
me with those early bursts of development and now she’s
settling back in to her babyness :) Actually, more likely,
she’s working on other bursts (vocabulary and independence!)
and no longer interested in the bed and the underwear. “Geez
Mom! Underwear are so last week!!” I can hear it
now…

This is from the other day, but I forgot
to link it with the others. I think I’m done with videos for
awhile as it seems to be slowing everything down!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuddeykdC3g]

We went to the grocery store
today. We needed to go Monday but it was snowing and ucky out,
so we didn’t go. Tuesday was beautiful and sunny, but we had
playdate plans, so we didn’t make it to the store. Today we
REALLY needed to go and, of course, it was raining! But we made
the best of it. Eve wore her “new” (new last year, fit this
year) rain boots and her “new” (hand-me-down from Parrish) rain
coat. Lex wore his “new” (hand-me-down from Joshua) rain boots
and insisted on his winter coat. Eve cried when she realized we
were driving to the grocery store, not walking in the rain, but
then we splashed in every puddle we could find in the parking
lot and that made her happy.

At BJs I
bought a pack of dry-erase markers, mostly because I wanted a
few but also because I thought the kids might like them. Turns
out it was an awesome purchase!! The kids LOVE them! I try to
encourage Lex to write and draw more but he’s a bit of a
perfectionist and gets frustrated quickly when he makes
mistakes. With the dry-erase markers he just erased his
mistakes and kept going. He drew and drew and erased and drew
some more. Eve did her best to get some drawing in too. When
Eve was napping he drew a really cool picture! He even put his
name on it so I would know who drew it :)

I should have gotten a video of
him explaining the picture, but I didn’t, so I’ll do my best to
explain it instead. There are two trees with green leaves on
top, the one on the right has branches on it so you can climb
up. The blue and green things near the trees are the leaves
falling. There’s a moon (the circle) with the sky in it and the
sky all around it :) Birds in the sky and, my favorite part,
Lex’s name!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlC6lt1jirE]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz8jrtB3ITE]

We had a very silly day yesterday. Lots of
hanging out and wrestling and running and just plan silliness.
I was also a bit camera happy and now I’m YouTube happy!! Watch
or not. All just silly though :)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WPPXUdsQ9U]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIGcTACHWnA]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKuzrWCSPJQ]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG0MI1XlbS4]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyyZDqVfl4E]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqnPTJCXzKA]

Eve has a tea set (thanks Grammy Lynn!)
that she loves to play with. It’s a princess tea set (aren’t
they all?) and the dishes have little pictures of Cinderella
and Prince Charming. Eve, however, is convinced that it’s a
picture of a princess and daddy. She got very excited one day
and came running to tell me that daddy is on her plate. I tried
to explain that he’s a prince, Prince Charming, to be precise
(aren’t they all?) She insisted it was a princess and daddy.
Who am I to argue with that :)

I have faith that we may eventually see
spring. Yay!!! Today was sunny and in the 50s. Alan even opened
the windows and took the insulation covers off the upstairs
windows (we’ve had no natural light upstairs for a few
months… not that we get much from the small windows
anyway…)

I took the kids out for a walk
and we had fun jumping in puddles. Eve gets excited to go
outside just so we can find some puddles :) We went up to check
on the fire hydrant, of course, and found a newly filled pot
hole. That’s when things go interesting. It never occurred to
me that the tar/gravel stuff they fill pot holes with might not
be dry and hardened. It is right next to a water drain grate
that the kids like to throw gravel into (according to the
neighbor there, ALL kids like to throw gravel down there :) ).
So the kids went over to play and Lex tried to pick up some
dark black gravel… and ended up with a handful of tar/gravel
gunk! Blech! We walked home with me holding his arm so he
didn’t touch anything (like his eyes or mouth!) and dragging
Eve along. Clean up was
interesting. We ended up with tar on both of their jackets,
their pants, all over his hands, and of course all over my
hands from cleaning him up. He did a lot of fidgeting while I
was cleaning him up and at one point I said something like,
“I’m sorry Lex, I know this isn’t fun, but we have to get you
cleaned up.” He said, “why is it not fun?” I said, “umm… I
don’t know. Are you having fun?” and he said “Yeah!!” I guess I
was too quick to judge :) It was certainly a new experience for
all of us! After several times through the wash, some olive oil
(thanks to a Google search) and some “Oops” thanks to Alan’s
good memory, we finally got their jackets mostly cleaned. I
think I learned an important lesson about road work today! Alan
took them back out this afternoon while I prepared for
tomorrow’s Pampered Chef show (my first since December! I’m
nervous like a newbie again!) I think we all enjoyed the day
(mostly) and are looking forward to another warm one
tomorrow… and many more, soon!!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9a9RQixxSQ]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-AKEIYDRyE]

Lex has been experimenting with emotions
lately. It’s interesting, and occasionally aggravating. In the
car today he told me that he was feeling a bit sad. I asked
why. He said he was also feeling a bit anxious. I think he’s
often just trying on the words for size. Just getting a feel
for what the word really means and what kind of response he
gets from us. The other day he was telling Alan that “sometimes
I like to make a happy face (big smile) and then go make a sad
face (frown).” Alan asked him why and he said “It makes me
sad.” Sometimes he makes senses, but sometimes he doesn’t.
Still other times he doesn’t seem to make sense, but when I
look back on the situation I see that he probably was feeling
anxious or nervous and I just didn’t get it at the time. He’s a
smart kid. It’s definitely cool to watch the learning (I know,
I know, I say that all the time, but it is cool!)

These are the movies I mentioned in the
last post. I went to bed last night before they were done
uploading. The second one is kind of long (2 minutes) but I
really wanted to catch her saying “you ready?” which she
finally says at the end :)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwb2Ov4ZeNs]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht2AERnwpdg]

Eve is feeling better today. Her appetite
came back a bit yesterday and she kept down the limited food I
allowed her to eat. She still took two naps and was pretty
fussy. Today she was fully of energy and eating almost at full
Eve volume :) Here she is in action.

Riding the car carrier

Lex making a snack

She’s so strong!

After a hard day of jumping from toy box to chair
Eve decided she needed a little rest. She even asked me to tuck
her in.

So cute. She stayed there for awhile, so maybe
she’s not quite 100% yet.

I was so excited yesterday when Lex said
he wanted to write letters with me. He never wants to write. We
wrote an A with crayon and then he started looking for the
“magical special eraser to erase the letter.” I explained that
we don’t have crayon erasers and so we switched to pencil.
Check it out, we wrote A, B, C, D, E, and F. I “helped” by very
lightly guiding his elbow. It took awhile (had to get Eve, had
to get bread out of the oven, change a diaper, etc.) but he
stayed interested. He even asked me (several times!) to help
him hold the pencil the right way. I was super excited!