Lex’s first few days with his train set
were interesting. He was adamant about building it like the
instructions say (and the picture on the box) and he refused to
mix together the KidKraft set and the Thomas set. Poor Thomas
couldn’t even drive on the bigger KidKraft set. I was slightly
worried about his lack of creativity and whether or not having
a complete set instead of just pieces was stifiling his
imagination (my neighbor insists it does). But after a few days
he started to loosen up on the rules and let Thomas drive on
the bigger tracks, and started mixing up the tracks, and now
look what he’s doing.

I love it! See the trees and road signs along
the way? I think he just needs to have a good grasp of the
intention of things before he’s willing to deviate from it. Or
something like that. Anyway, several weeks post Christmas and
he is stilling loving the trains. We put them away each night
and each morning brings a new and creative layout. Such
fun!

I know it’s been awhile. Life goes on.
Just wanted to make a note about the new personalities my kids
are growing in to. It’s pretty amazing to watch. Lex is growing
in to a calm (usually), responsible, helpful kid. He dresses
himself, feeds himself (obviously) and will even make his own
meals if I let him. He plays happily by himself and with Eve
(usually) and with others. He builds long tracks with the
train, colors, reads, clears his place after dinner (still
doesn’t eat dinner) and helps clean up at the end of the day.
He’s polite and potty-trained and generally a real pleasure to
be around. Eve, on the other hand, while still a perfect little
girl, is entering her toddler years and becoming much more of a
handful than she used to be. She’s very social and therefore
always under foot. Wherever I am, she is, and talking to me!
(my mom is thinking “payback!” right about now) She fights
about getting dressed, refuses diapers, kicks me on the
changing table, won’t wear a bib, and is generally much more
difficult to deal with. What happened to my sweet baby girl??
Oh yes, she comes out at night when we sit in the chair to sing
songs and Eve snuggles into me and falls asleep. Then she’s a
sweet baby girl again. Like I said, she’s still perfect. She is
super funny and social. She likes to wear silly hats (monkey
hat the grocery store) and play hide-n-seek (usually hiding at
my feet) and tackle Lex to the floor (oh, yes, she takes him
down!) She’s very into the idea of potty training and spends
lots of time with no diaper on, however she doesn’t really know
when she has to go, so we spend lots of time sitting in the
bathroom with her and we do lots of laundry these days! She
loves reading (“self! read self!”) and having tea parties with
baby in the high chair.

It feels like
they have recently both entered new phases of their childhood
development and it’s neat to see Eve going through the same
stages that Lex went through, and seeing Lex gives me hope that
Eve too will make it through the stubborn phase. I have to say
I did not missing the “kicking on the changing table” phase. I
would have been happy if Eve skipped that one, but alas, she
has not. Maybe we’ll just potty train her now and be done with
the changing table altogether!

(I tried to add a few photos,
but Blogger is giving me errors, so I’ll try again some other
time. And
Lex is on my lap now so I’m not even going to proof-read. :)
For now,
happy reading!)

One of Eve’s new favorite sayings is “pee
poop potty!” It usually comes after I take off her diaper for a
change, but she usually gets some pee out. She gets pretty
excited and looks in the potty and says “good job!” I like a
self-congratulating kid :)

Today Bone
pooped in his box (where he’s supposed to) and we all got
excited and Rosy gave him a treat. Eve started demanding a
treat too, then ran to the bathroom saying “pee poop potty!” I
took off her diaper and she sat right down and peed :) Then got
her treat too. She was pretty happy. Whatever motivation it
takes, right?

They are having fun with
Aunt Rosy these past few days. Rose has a camera on her
computer and they spend lots of time taking pictures and movies
of themselves. Here is a picture of them taking pictures of
themselves.

Eve is a little confused about who belongs in
her new baby cradle. I say the baby dolls but she says “Eve
cradle!”

On Saturday we had to cancel a trip to
Chuck E. Cheese with Jim & Julie. We were all really
sad. We told Lex that we’d go to the Montshire instead, but
then he ended up taking a good nap and waking up about 5
minutes before the museum closed. More sadness. Instead we went
to Panera Bread for dinner (thanks Uncle B!!!) and everyone was
happy. It’s been forever since we’ve been there and the kids
love it. On Sunday we were the first ones at the Montshire
:)

Lex
checks on the bear, making sure he’s still there and still
napping.

A tired
monkey.

Monday started with
a message from Rosy asking if she could come visit. Yay! Then
we had the good fortune to tag along with Alan on a server fix
trip to MA. Good fortune for me and the kids, not so much for
him. We dropped him at his data center and went to visit Julie
and baby Molly. It was great. The kids are so sweet and
innocent and Lex was as equally excitied to go to their house
as he was to go to C.E.C. I think the excitement was to see
them, not so much the location. Anyway, we had a fun visit,
introduced Molly to “veggie sticks” (we just discovered them
the other day), and got to play with lots of new toys.

Molly
and Eve playing with Eve’s new ball tower.

We were
there pretty late and Eve was very ready for bed. When I
changed her in to PJs she wanted to put “winnie pooh socks on
hands,” and then make a few phone calls :)

We spent this morning cleaning the house (it
was a disaster!!) and then Rosy came to visit with her new
puppy! What an exciting week! Lex likes him a lot, and Eve
likes him when he’s in the other room :) He’s only 7 weeks old
and a little nippy. We taught her to say “no bite” to him, but
she uses here little baby voice and tends to break out into
tears, so I don’t think Bone sees her as very authorative :)
But I think they will warm up to each other pretty
quickly!

Opening
another Christmas present!

Now, some movies for you. First one is Eve
singing the alphabet and the second one is of Lex reading a
letter from Mema.

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

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEOwXMlb4fE]

Happy New Year to all! We went to a NYE
party next-door and made it all the way until 9:00pm!! Wild and
crazy party folks we are :) Now Alan is working and I’m
blogging and we might actually make it to midnight.

Eve in
her party clothes. Babydoll came to the party
too.

The party
was fun. The kids always like to visit Parrish and there were
two other kids there, an 8yr old boy and a 3yr old girl. Eve
adored the 8yr old. He was super silly and played with her and
taught her how to slide down the stairs head first. Important
things for a 21 month old (yup, 21 months today!) to know. The
stair case was only 6 stairs high and well carpeted and she had
a blast. We are going to have to teach her very quickly that we
DON’T slide down the 13 hardwood stairs at our house! Lex
played with all of Parrish’s new toys and ran around with the
other boys and found a puzzle map of the US and thought that
was pretty cool. Alan and I ate and socialized. All in all I
think a good time was had by all :)

This toy
that Lex is playing with is the coolest toy! It’s a bunch of
plastic beveled square shaped pieces that you can stack and
configure to make a ton of different things. The paper that Lex
is looking at shows lots of ideas. All of the kids (ages 21mo –
8.5yrs) and several of the grown ups had a good time playing
with it.

Choo-choo! Looks like everyone had a very Thomas
Christmas.

Here she
comes, head first down the stairs. Such a brave (and silly)
girl!
(In case you’re worried, I was right there
with her every time and she listened well when I asked her to
stop if I wasn’t able to stand guard.)

Now, as we head in to the new year
I feel as though I should have something deep and meaningful to
say, but alas, I do not. Tomorrow will be another day and we’ll
get through it, just like the next one and just like the last
one. Perhaps I’ll take some time for deep reflection next
month. Or not. For now I’m going to remove some redeye (my
camera’s redeye reduction feature is lame) and then add a few
pics here and then pry Alan away from the computer so we can
watch some TV. Love to all. See ya in 2009!

Our
morning
Eve spent the morning with no
diaper on. She is very eager to use the potty and insistent on
no diaper, but she doesn’t quite have the hang of things yet.
After three pee accidents and one poop accident (that reminded
me of an “It’s
always sunny in Philadelphia” episode so much that I
laughed out loud when it happened…) we decided to spend the
afternoon with diapers ON. She does like the potty though and
her, Lex, and dolly had a nice tea party on the potty.

Our evening
I made a
fantastic dinner of beans and rice, green beans, and
tomato/mozzarella salad and proceeded to listen to Lex have a
complete tantrum because he wanted a bagel instead. I stuck him
upstairs and told him he could come down when he was ready to
taste one bite of everything on his plate. He fussed for
awhile, then threw his blankets down the stairs, then got
quiet. I figured he went into his room to read books. When I
brought Eve upstairs for a bath after dinner I found Lex sound
asleep at the top of the stairs. Guess he was tired!

Our neighbors came to visit this afternoon
and while the boys played with the train set, Eve served tea.
Hmm….. They all had fun anyway :)

Cheers!

She was
adorable today in her new clothes (and Anya’s hand-me-down vest
that Eve LOVES!)

Lately Lex has been taking his quiet time
with books in our room. This is good, but still not as restful
as a nap. This morning we went to the science museum and he ran
around with a friend of his. After lunch he insisted he wanted
quiet time instead of a nap, but I think we ended up with both.
:) This is the first time he’s ever fallen asleep while
reading.