She is talking SO MUCH!

I know we posted about this before, but goodness gracious. Since we've been at my parents' house, R has been talking and talking, and talking some more. She identifies what seems like hundreds of things (although if we counted it's probably more like 20-30) and loves to point to different people and say who they are.

Surf has been practicing his sign language with R and he signs things and then she says what the sign is. It is so freaking awesome.

I will have to post a lot about Christmas, but I want to do so with pictures, and with all the family and busy-ness that is my parents' house at the holidays, I haven't uploaded any pictures yet. Maybe I'll work on that tonight and see what progress I make.

But suffice to say: we have been extraordinarily blessed this Christmas and have really enjoyed our opportunities to spend time with both sides of our family.

A couple of random tidbits:

R has been sleeping better than ever since we've been here. She goes down around 6:45 and wakes up close to 7. Some of this may be because she's sleeping in her grandparents' bedroom and in the mornings when she's awake but not ready to get up, Grandma picks her up and lets R fall back asleep on her chest.

Grandpa has been spoiling R with "cacks" (how R says cracker). She now walks around saying "cack, cack, cack" and if the cupboard where the crackers are gets opened, she gets very excited and immediately runs over to whoever opened it and begs for crackers. She doesn't always get them but boy does she want them. She'll be "all done" with lunch-- signing it and everything-- and then in the next breath say, "cack?" There is always room for "cacks", apparently.

Geg

R is loving Christmas at her Grandma and Grandpa's house. One of her favorite parts of the whole shebang? Her uncle "Geg." She starts signing and saying his name the minute he walks into a room, and often calls for him when he's not in the room.

R had a lot of fun playing "Barrel of Monkeys" with Uncle Geg on Tuesday. On Friday, Uncle Geg taught R how to read time.

A Note on Our Stockings

I've wanted to explain this for awhile now. The reason our stockings are hanging "backwards" (they hang in the opposite direction from all the stockings you see in pictures and in stores) is because we bought already-embroidered stockings from a Land's End Not Quite Perfect store that used to be down the street from us before we moved away. The names weren't ours, of course-- "Lydge" is on one and "Eyalu" is on the other-- so we turned them around and put our names on the backs and stitched our own pictures on.

J made a wreath on my stocking, and I made Santa feet on his. For R's stocking, we used an extra stocking we had kicking around last year and put a stocking on it. Then this year, because we were actually going to have guests for Christmas, I found a couple other stockings in my Christmas decorations bin so I cut out Grammie and Grampie's names and added a snowman on Grampie's stocking since his--the first one in the picture--looked more boring than the others. Updated photos will come once I get them loaded on the computer.

(By the way, Grammie and Grampie's names are only safety pinned on, so if we have different guests next year, I can put different names on the stockings. Aren't I clever?)

Yay for the weekend!

I am so excited for this weekend! Grammie and Grampie are coming to visit tomorrow--hopefully. Cross your fingers that the snow and weather aren't too bad and that their drive goes smoothly. If it's a huge mess they may decide not to come... but we obviously really hope that doesn't happen.

But regardless, J and R and I are doing "our" Christmas on Sunday before we go visit Grandma and Grandpa, and I'm super excited!

I baked sugar cookies, applesauce bread, and peanut blossoms. We have a ton of chocolate laying around. And I have all the ingredients for my father's amazing Christmas Tea Punch (which I called Christmas Tree Punch for the longest time when I was a kid). It's going to rock.

I can't wait to see what R thinks of the dollhouse and the armchair we got her!

Speaking of the dollhouse, it is 90% done. There's some paint to be touched up, and J hasn't put the back on (we don't even have the piece of wood for the back yet). It is so cute!!!! I just hope R likes it.

She's Sick... Boo!

December was already going to be a short month at day care (and we have to pay even for the weeks we're not going to be there) and this week R ended up with pinkeye in one eye so we kept her home on Monday. Then Tuesday she went back in only to have the day care call us around 10:30 to say that she had a fever. We got her on an antibiotic and kept her home Wednesday to ensure that she would get a good nap and plenty of TLC. Today she's still got a fever so we haven't taken her back yet. Hopefully she'll go tomorrow-- especially because I spent hours in the kitchen baking applesauce bread for each of her day care teachers!

But it feels like a huge gyp to have to spend $110 a week for three weeks in December that she won't even be at day care for. Sigh. We asked about not paying for the last two weeks, but this only means that they can't pay their employees, and we certainly don't wish that upon the teachers at the day care. They work hard-- it's not easy watching five 16-18 month olds at the same time-- and count on making their regular salary.

It's not like the money for day care isn't in our budget. It just feels so... ehh! you know?

18 months

Dear R,

I'm only three days behind on this one, so not too bad, compared to the three weeks I was behind on your 17 month letter!

One thing I want to talk about in this letter is something that I just think is so unbearably sweet I can hardly stand it. Often, when Daddy and I are saying goodnight to you, or just standing together and one of us is holding you, you will push our heads together indicating that you want one of us to give the other a kiss. We both give you kisses all the time, probably so many that you get sick of getting kisses, and this seems to be your reminder that we need to give each other kisses, too. It's the sweetest thing. You did it tonight when we were saying good night to you--and it's happened more often this month than it has ever before.

You've started saying two word phrases, most commonly, "more, please" and "No ____". You seem to understand everything we say to you. It's really amazing, after all these months of just talking at you, to finally feel like you're understanding all the things we're saying.

You're starting to sing! You say things in a singsongy way all the time, and you often hum or babble in a singing-like voice. We have a "Deck the Halls" board book that has the words to the song in it and we've been practicing that song a lot because I can't get the rhythm of the "Fa la la la la, la la la la"s right, so I keep doing it over and over and getting it wrong. Drives Daddy crazy, I know, and I know some of you understand how he feels (specifically, those of you who have been tortured before with my singing voice... sorry, guys!) But anyway, you've started warbling your tongue along to the "Fa la la la la, la la la la"s and it's so cute!

You continue to love music in all shapes and forms. You love to turn on and off your Snowman Christmas music thing from your Great-Aunt T and Great-Uncle D and the CD player in your room. You dance like there's no tomorrow. Sometimes you pull me and Daddy into a room just so you can march around and do what we call your "interpretive dance" moves. There's one move in particular that looks just like you're trying to do the dance Patrick Dempsey's character does in "Can't Buy Me Love"-- my friends H and D from college will know exactly what I mean by this, but because this movie predates you, here's a video.

Love,
Mama

Christmas Traditions

R has been really enjoying all of our Christmas traditions so far.

Last weekend, she helped us put the angel on top of the Christmas tree:On Friday, we made cookies together:
On Saturday she got to meet Santa and Mrs. Claus!

What a difference a year makes!

One of my aunts from Texas gave me and J The Family Christmas Book shortly after our official first Christmas together in 2003. It's got space to record 25 years of Christmases, and I've been filling it in every year. When we pull out our Christmas decorations, I enjoy flipping through the book and reading entries from previous years.

Up until R was born, most of the flipping through didn't look too different. I mean, from one year to the next, J and I didn't change that much, and the pictures reflect more the changes in scenery--we've always spent Christmas at someone else's house, whether it was my parents' house, J's parents' house, or my brother and sister-in-law's home.

But now, we're seeing real dramatic change from one year to the next. Check out these pictures of R from last Christmas versus R this year-- holy cow.

What a difference a year makes, when you're talking about going from 6 months to 18 months.

THEN:

NOW:

Christmas Presents as Decorations? UPDATE

Some clarifications that J requested.

First, only presents from J's parents were put under the tree before Christmas. Santa still came on Christmas eve and left unwrapped presents under the tree for J and JW to find on Christmas morning.

Second, the only gifts we have been putting out early are gifts for J and I -- there are no gifts for R in the pictures we've posted of Christmas decor. The gifts by the tree are all the gifts we've bought for other members of our family, including Grandma, Grandpa, Grammie, Grampie, L'il Tyke, Surf, Local Hero, G, and Little Frog. Those gifts would probably still be out early just because we need a place to put them once they get wrapped and it's just as nice to see them out and by the tree as it is to see them languishing in a closet somewhere.

Third, Santa is still very much going to come for R, but Santa will arrive wherever R happens to be spending Christmas.

Christmas Decor and Tree

At long last, here are the awaited pictures of our tree and Christmas decor.
Our tree is the same tiny little one we've used since we started dating-- it's one J got from his parents when he was in graduate school, I think. We've never gotten a big tree because we're always visiting family over the actual holiday and it seems silly to get a big tree when you won't get to enjoy it for the full holiday season.

R loves to have us pick her up and show her all the things hanging on the tree. She points to all the ornaments and asks you to tell her what they are. She's so gentle, and never tries to grab at them. She just likes to point and have you say what the items are. It's so cute.

The most exciting new piece of decor is the wreath that we have hanging over our fireplace. This was an early Christmas gift from my parents-- thank you!! we love it! Doesn't it look terrific?
We didn't put out everything we have this year-- just certain things that we especially like. The mantelpiece is not especially well-arranged. Mostly, I just pulled out the things I really wanted out and stuck them on there. I may still arrange them differently--but this is what it looks like now, and I didn't want to wait any longer to take photos.

Christmas Presents as Decorations?

J's family when they were growing up always put out presents immediately after they were wrapped. J and JW loved to shake the boxes and guess at what was in them. Now, J is a champion present-guesser. It's somewhat aggravating sometimes because sometimes all he does is touch a gift and then immediately knows exactly what it is. I've learned to be more creative in my wrapping so he doesn't guess so easily.

But anyway, we've started putting out our presents for one another as soon as we have them wrapped. We've done this for a few years now.

At first, I didn't like the idea.

My family has always been a surprise family. As kids, we never had any idea what presents we would be getting or how many there would be until my dad would check downstairs to see if Santa came on Christmas morning. We would always be huddled at the top of the stairs, creeping further and further down the stairs until my dad would whistle or something and then we'd scramble down and gasp and scream in amazement at all the presents under the tree. There were five kids in my family so there were a LOT of presents. It was awesome.

So at first, presents being out early seemed to take away from the surprise element. J and I both know what our presents look like, and we each have an idea of how many we're getting.

But the longer we do the "presents out early" thing, the more I enjoy having them as something to look at during the Christmas holiday. I really like seeing them up on the mantel. (J's gifts to me are on the right, and my gifts for J are on the left).

But once R gets older--like, next year--I don't think we'll have any presents out early. I like the surprise element much better with kids.

How do you all do it? Is it always a surprise on Christmas morning even with you and your partner? Or do you have presents out early?

R's Favorite Christmas Decoration

As I mentioned earlier, we put up our Christmas tree and decorations last weekend. I've got a few other pictures to share with you, but for now I wanted to share this video of R and her favorite decoration. She got it as a gift from Auntie T and Uncle D over Thanksgiving this year. Her cousin Little Frog has one of her own, too. So awesome.

This is the decoration that she points to the most frequently, and she's learned to understand the word "music" because of it. She asks us to play it almost every time any of us walks past it, and she loves when we put it on the chair so she can play it herself. She almost always dances when it starts playing, and she loves to point to the dog and wreath and snowman and ask us to tell her what they are.

UPDATE, 12/12/08: When we pulled it down this afternoon, after she played it, she did this--several times:

Time to update the dictionary

It's happening now. You know how people say they learn a new word or sign every day. Some days it seems like 2 or 3 words or signs. R's dictionary has grown and we're struggling to keep up. Here are the signs and words she's been saying in the last few days:

girl - sign
boy -sign
cereal - sign
thank you - sign

cheek
neck
elbow
knee
toes

hippo
squeak

color
black
blue
pink
purple
orange
yellow
(strangely, we've been having trouble with red and green)

we've been preparing for seeing family during the holidays with:
aunt
uncle

lots of others that I can't think of. We'll have to get more on video, but of course it's hard to get R to repeat what you want when you want it. Especially for company or cameras.

Congratulations, Local Hero!

My brother, Local Hero, just ran a marathon in 3 hours 48 minutes, finishing at 1400 out of 25,000 people!

Playing in the Snow

It snowed over the weekend-- gorgeous again--and the snow actually lasted into Sunday morning (yippee!) Granted, there wasn't very much of it, but there was definitely more than the last time.

J even taught her how to make a snow angel. Sort of!

Jingle Bells

We put up our Christmas tree this past weekend--more on that later this week--but for now, enjoy this video of R jingling away.

Hand-Made Outfit from Great-Aunt L and Great-Grammie

Here are the pictures from when R wore her new outfit from Great Aunt L and Great-Grammie the other day. Everyone at day care loved it! And it's perfectly warm and cozy for the wintry weather we've been having!

Elbow

My parents taught R to say "elbow" while on the webcam this afternoon. After that conversation, she spent a lot of time walking around saying "elmo" and trying to point in the general vicinity of her elbow, although she was usually pointing at her wrist or the inside of her arm.

Later, all throughout her bath, we heard "Elmo! Elmo! Elmo!" and then, after J and I repeated the word with some serious emphasis on the "b", "El-BA" a few times.

EDITED TO ADD: By the way, even though R has never seen Elmo on TV, she has seen Elmo Live! (the toy) and absolutely loves him. When you test him out in the store he does a little routine that ends with him blowing three or four kisses-- MWAH, MWAH, MWAH!-- and every time we watched it, R blew kisses right back at him. It was the cutest thing ever.

17 months (and three weeks...)

Dear R,

Here are some examples of what we've experienced during your 17th month:

1) Your vocabulary explosion continues. You say more and more words, adding new ones nearly every day. We have a lot of fun at dinner saying things just to see if we can get you to repeat them. When you hear the Christmas song "Let it snow," you start saying "hnow, hnow." When we play with your sushi set, you say "shusu." You're even repeating the names of folks at daycare for us.

2) We've learned that we have to be a lot sneakier than we used to have to be. It's a lot harder to hide things from you! We can't just stick something behind our backs and tell you it's gone. You know how to look for what we're hiding. (You also know how to throw a temper tantrum if you want something we're not giving you.)

3) This month has been filled with coloring. We pull out the crayons nearly daily. You do all kinds of things with them--asking for different colors, using two crayons at once, trying out different ways of making the crayons make marks on the paper. It's very apparent that you're right handed by this point, too.

4) Speaking of being right handed: You've been spending a lot of time with a plastic Black and Decker tool set that Grampie found for you in an outlet mall. It's one of your favorite toys! You love to pound the nails into the fake wooden block and you actually put the screwdriver to work turning the screws--we're so impressed with how well you've learned to manipulate the tools! It's especially impressive because not very many toys keep your attention for more than 30 seconds.

5) You've also gotten much more interested in books. You walk around signing and saying "book, book, book" and we pull different ones down all the time. Current favorite book: Cinderella. You're such a princess! You will sit for a long time looking at Cinderella and pointing at the birds and mice on the pages.

There's so much more... but you're almost 18 months so I'll save that for the next letter...

Love always,
Mama

No Pacifier, Day 3

I got a full report from J about how things went last night when I got home from work this evening. Apparently, around 2 a.m. R started waking up and being fussy. I really don't think this was pacifier related, because some of this waking up had been happening even when she was still using it, and when she would wake up, she would actually throw the pacifier out of her crib and not let us give it back to her.

I think she's having serious teething issues. She's got three or four new molars that are poking through and probably more teeth that are working their way out. Poor J was up between 2 and 5 a.m. trying to get her back to sleep--apparently she was up crying three times in between those hours.

Tonight she went to bed about half an hour early, with no problems at all.

As for J and I, we are tired and going to watch a movie and probably head to bed early ourselves. I've got a nasty cold and I'm planning on taking some cold medicine and curling up on the couch with some tea.

H!

So my friend M sent a sweet Thanksgiving greeting, including a link to an online album with pictures of her daughter, H. It was amazing to see how H had changed since the last time we'd seen her, back in June.
'
Anyway, we showed R the photos, and she kept saying "H! H! H!" when looking at the pictures.

We cheered her on-- "Yeah! That's right! You remember H, don't you?"

Today we showed R Thanksgiving photos that Surf and Cali sent from their Thanksgiving in Florida. There were three babies in the pictures-- Li'l Tyke and his two cousins, C & K--and at each one, R kept saying,"H! H!"

Suffice to say, we worked on saying "Li'l Tyke" and "C" and "K" although the only thing she did was to say "bay-bee" a few times and point at the screen a lot.

I think she misses H, don't you?

No Pacifier, Day 2

This no pacifier thing is a lot easier than I expected it to be. She's gone to sleep pretty much normally. She fussed tonight but it was less "give me the pacifier" and more just typical resisting sleep even though she's really tired behavior.

Funny how some things you dread for ages and ages and they turn out to be non-events, and other things just sucker-punch you because you're so not expecting it.

Thanksgiving

We had a terrific Thanksgiving holiday. We traveled up to Connecticut and spent the weekend at Grammie and Grampie's. Grammie made a huge Thanksgiving feast and Great-Grammie and J's Aunt L came, as well as Grammie's Uncle D.Great-Grammie and Aunt L gave R her Christmas present early, since they won't see us at Christmas.
She loves the little puppy, and the crocheted outfit--there's a jumper, sweater, and hat--fits perfectly. Doesn't she look adorable in it? (I think I've got a few more pictures of it from when she wore it the other day, so I'll try to upload those soon. Everyone at day care oohed and ahhed over it when she wore it.)

That is IT. We're getting rid of it TO-DAY.

By "it," I mean her pacifier, of course. We only own two, and one has been lost since our trip to Connecticut, so the one remaining pacifier is being thrown in the garbage today.

What decided it?

Well, she's been using it at night and during naps for, well, since she was about 8 weeks old or so. And it's been fine. She'll use it and let us take it out as soon as she wakes up. Sometimes she'll take it out herself in preparation to be picked up.

Not so the last few days, though.

Yesterday morning and this morning I had to deal with a huge, throwing-her-body-on-the-floor-she's-so-pissed-off temper tantrum after I took the pacifier out.

I'd been meaning to get rid of it for awhile, but I just kept putting it off, because she wasn't really asking for it at other times, and I hated the idea of anything messing with her getting sleep. But since this problem reared it's head, I feel no compunction about just getting rid of it.

We were pretty apprehensive about getting her to sleep tonight, but she really didn't fuss long at all-- I was prepared to go up and comfort her (the whole wait 10 minutes and go pat her back) but before the 10 minutes were up, she was showing signs of calming down so we let it go a few minutes longer and she was out.

Keep your fingers crossed that it stays this easy.

Hijinks

Here are a few more of R's hijinks during Grammie and Grampie's visit last month. She loves to climb in things. And she still loves those cowboy boots!

Bows galore

R still doesn't let us put bows in her hair for long. We have a bunch of them sitting on a bookshelf in our dining room because I try to put them on in her bedroom and she leaves them in until we get downstairs and then pulls them out. Once she gets wind that there's a bow in her hair she can't stop trying to pull it out.

Anyway, Grammie and Grampie had some fun when they were visiting in the middle of last month putting all these bows in her hair simultaneously. Of course, it didn't last, but the pictures are great anyway.
(By the way, excuse her extreme bed-head in the second picture).

I LOVE the bear suit!

R wore the bear suit again today. We even took her out shopping with it on and she got all kinds of compliments. Lesson for those of you with kids: People love babies in bear suits!

Remember that post I made about the snow?

It snowed again the day after I made that post. It was beautiful!

Here's a picture of what it looked like in the morning:Here's a picture of R "playing" in it later that afternoon:

The Force is strong with this one

Ok, sorry for the cheesy title. But I love how R, wearing my jacket in this picture, looks like she's dressed as a very short young (or incredibly old) Jedi.

and here she is turning around looking very pleased with herself:

Has it really been more than a week?

Goodness gracious. I can't believe it's been so long since I last posted. All I can say is that the time is getting away from me--work has gotten busy and we were out of town for a few days visiting Grammie and Grampie. More on that soon, as well as a photo of R channeling Yoda, a 17-month (give or take a couple weeks) post, and bunches of pictures!

Definitely not in Texas anymore!

It snowed today!

It snowed today!

Real snow! Falling from the sky in beautiful white flakes. Oh, it was gorgeous. And I walked home with snow falling all around me, landing gently on my head and swirling in the air. So awesome.

I've missed this.

Living here I feel like I'm rediscovering all kinds of things we didn't really have in Texas.

The first was, of course, fall. Seeing the leaves change colors and be beautiful and vibrant, and feeling the crisp fall air and being able to savor the change in season.

And now, the first snowfall of the year. They say it doesn't snow much here-- that we'll get an occasional snowfall that doesn't hang around for very long-- but it still does snow! Yippee!

Jungle Green

Well, it turns out that Jungle Green is like a brighter version of the green from the green room-- you know, the one room in our house in Texas that was BRIGHT green before J painted it light blue.

I don't know how much of a role it will play in R's dollhouse, but most of the trim and roof will end up being purple. But maybe we'll have some fun getting some green on there, somewhere. We'll see!

Date Night

So I've stood up a few of my co workers the last couple of weeks. They've been organizing a happy hour on Fridays at 4. I've never been able to go, but this week I swore up and down that I would make it at least for half an hour or so before heading home.

Unfortunately, I ended up backing out, yet again. They all think I'm a major loser! But I couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a date night with J. Grammie and Grampie spent three days driving around Baltimore and seeing various sights around there, and then came back in town on Thursday, and generously offered to watch R while J and I headed out on the town.

So awesome.

We went out to dinner at a really good asian restaurant and then went to the mall. Yeah, I know, kind of dull, but it was still fun to be out just the two of us, doing what we felt like without worrying about a squirmy fussy baby who wants to grab everything, or who would get way too tired to be out much past 7 p.m.

It was the first time we'd had a whole entire evening to ourselves in a long time. And it was great. We found a few christmas gifts. I found a gift I wanted to get my brother, Local Hero, but it didn't work out. I'll have to keep thinking. I found a few things I wanted for me but J made me wait. We bought some things for Grammie and Grampie as well as Grandma and Grandpa. And we browsed Barnes & Noble, which I love.

Now we're back home and back to the grindstone, with huge piles of work in front of us. But what a great break last night.

Dollhouse Paint Update

Thanks so much to those who took the time out of their busy schedules to vote in our dollhouse poll! It looks as if we've settled on some paint colors, although the choice was determined more by what happened to be on sale at Sears for $1.00 a quart than by the poll winners.

We had three votes for green, two for purple, and one each for brown and black.

The colors J picked up today are . . .

wait for them . . .

"jungle green" (whatever that is-- there was no color dot at the top so I'm expecting a darkish green but who knows!)

and

"heather" which is a dark lavender color.

Coincidentally, these are also the two colors that were victorious in our poll!

We don't need two quarts of paint to paint the roof and very little trim on the doors and windows, but J thought maybe R would want a dark green refrigerator or a lavender stove when he makes her a kitchen set for her birthday. Maybe.

Our Little Climber

R's new thing is climbing. She loves to climb on stuff now-- it's all she wants to do!

She climbs into her high chair by herself and just sits there sometimes. Today J said she actually crawled onto the table from her high chair to get to a cup of milk.

If we leave our chairs not pushed in under the table, she climbs on them and sometimes gets into some computer-related hijinks.

She climbs on all the furniture. She loves to sit in her rocking chair in her bedroom. If we are sitting near a chair or the couch, she stands on us to get better leverage.

If we are vacuuming, she climbs on the vacuum and rides it around while we clean.

When we go to the park, the thing she loves best is climbing up the stairs to go down the slide.

If we don't close the gate that blocks off our stairs, she immediately makes a beeline for them and wants to climb up all the stairs in the house. Once she gets to the 2nd floor, she makes a run for the stairs up to the 3rd floor.

I think we're done...

Nursing, that is. It's been almost a week since I last nursed R to sleep. After worrying about how we would do this, it was amazingly anti-climactic. I just had J take over putting her to sleep after her bath and she's been fine with that almost every night. He reads her a few stories, sings a song or two, and lays her down, and she's out.

She hasn't fussed for me (except for one night, when I made the mistake of trying to help out in her room after her bath), and she hasn't acted antsy to nurse at other times, or even seemed to really miss it at all.

Dollhouse Help

So J and Grampie are definitely putting together a dollhouse-slash-bookcase for R! I'm so excited-- I found these plans on ebay and the finished product is totally cute. Here's a link to a blog post showing what the dollhouse/bookshelf will (supposedly) look like when it's done.

This weekend during Grammie and Grampie's visit, J and Grampie have been hard at work. Yesterday they went shopping and got most of the materials they needed, and today they got most of the boards cut, although J still has to go back to Home Depot to pick up some more pieces of wood and a few other supplies.

This evening we were talking about what color we should paint the roof and window/door trim. What do y'all think?

What color should we paint the roof and trim of R's dollhouse?
	Pink
	Green
	Light Blue
	Purple
	Orange
	White
	Brown
	Black
	Other (please comment)
pollcode.com free polls

Christmas Toy Ideas

I really like this website--SafeMama--because it posts regular updates on things such as BPA in baby items and other hazards I wouldn't necessarily keep up with as well on my own. They just posted their Christmas Toy Guide and I love a lot of the ideas they're suggesting!

I already had my eye on the Green tea set but we're waiting until we get R a kitchen set. This christmas it'll be about the bookshelf/dollhouse. Maybe for her 2nd birthday we'll do the kitchen set.

Anyway, it's a nice place to check for reasonably-priced gift ideas for those babies and very young children that you'll be shopping for this winter.

Speaking of Christmas shopping, J and I went over our gift lists and I think we've just about decided on everything we're getting, and are even done shopping for a few people. Thank goodness for internet shopping, right?

We're still working on them staying in...

and I think she's getting better at not pulling them out right away. (and I need to get my bangs cut.)

Let's Talk Book Recommendations

One of my favorite things to do is to discover new books for R that I enjoy reading again and again. Here are a few books we've had a lot of fun with recently:

Amy Wilson Sanger has a series of "World Snacks" books that are beautifully illustrated and so so fun to read aloud. We've borrowed Yum Yum Dim Sum as well as Let's Nosh!, both of which I heartily recommend. I hope we'll find others as well-- and these are board books so excellent for reading to R with.

Another one of my favorite library finds (albeit this one was back in Texas) was a book called Bee Bim Bop! by Linda Sue Park. It tells the story of a mother preparing this traditional Korean dish for her family, from going to the grocery store to pick out ingredients to chopping and cooking the dish at home to setting the table and eating with the family. Primarily told from the young daughter's perspective, the book is super-catchy and excellent to read aloud, with prose such as "Hurry, Mama, hurry! Hungry hungry hungry for some bee bim bop!" In the back of the book there's a really nice explanation of the dish and a recipe.

The other book I'm going to mention is another one we found in the library in Texas before we moved-- 17 Kings and 42 Elephants. J and I are a little bit divided on this book. J doesn't love it quite as much as I do. I think he finds some of the text a little weird. But for me, there are two major things selling this book to me: first, the artwork is amazing. It's interesting, beautiful, and just fun fun fun to look at, and second, I LOVE the rhythm of the prose. It moves like a march set in the jungle (which is essentially the story of the book)--and it evokes all kinds of imaginative possibilities for me. (Sample text: "Forty-two elephants--oh, what a lot of 'ums,/Big feet beating in the wet wood shade,/Proud and ponderous hippopotomums/Danced to the music that the marchers made")

I want to post more about the books we love-- but I'm also eager to get some ideas about other books to look for for R! What books do you love reading to your kids?

Roar!

I've been working on teaching R how to roar--like a lion or a bear. She can sign both lion and bear, and gets very excited when she sees pictures of either animal. She doesn't always roar, though. This bear suit might help her learn, don't you think? Thanks so much, Jenn, for the bear suit! Her daughter, whose name is the same as R's, and who is almost exactly one year older than R, was kind enough to let us have the clothes she's outgrown. This bear suit was one of the things in the recent care package Jenn sent. We love it. She wore it two days in a row just because we didn't want to stop watching her waddle around like the adorablest little bear.

Hiking

This past weekend, we walked one of the trails at a park near our house. So fun! We're definitely taking Grammie and Grampie when they come visit this weekend, as long as the weather cooperates.

Halloween Antics Part II

After returning inside, R was ready to put on her full cat costume - which consisted of adding the ears and tail.
The tail is pretty fun to play with - and it loops onto her belt loop which prevents her from removing it - a feature the ears do not have, unfortunately.
A little bit of costume wearing goes a long way.

Halloween Antics Part I

Halloween morning, R got dressed for daycare. She wore an orange pair of pants with candy corn on them, a black halloween shirt, and practiced wearing her cat ears for later. They would be playing dress-up at day care so she was not in costume when she first left the house. She took a moment here to study up on her numbers before going to school.

At daycare they had special snacks and got dressed up and went for a walk outside, crunching along on the fallen leaves. R took her nap in her costume and so when it was time to go home, she put on her orange pants to keep her legs warm. It was such a nice day that R decided to play outside for a bit. With her leopard print outfit, she decided to pretend she was a cave-person. She found some nice looking sticks to rub together.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is coming! But...

We have our little pumpkin (really, it's little. not even very carve-able) and a ghost decorating our front porch, and we found some adorable accessories for R's cat costume--she's going to be soooo cute!--but I just haven't been that into Halloween this year. I've actually been more focused on Christmas.

This is new for me. I'm not usually into the Christmas mood this early, and I'm definitely not one of those Christmas-all-year-round kind of people, either, but right now, all I really want to do is talk Christmas gifts. Anybody else out there know what you're getting your child for Christmas? (How about about you guys, A&M and Surf&Cali--what are you getting for our little nephews??)

So far, J and I have gotten R a Pottery Barn Kids Anywhere Chair (with the navy gingham slipcover), and we also want to get her some accessories for her doll. Part of me is tempted to get her a new doll but she really doesn't need one. We're also toying with the idea of making her a combination dollhouse/bookcase. I found a few plans online that look cute and hopefully aren't too hard. When Grammie and Grampie come visit next weekend I think Grampie will help us figure out the plan. Maybe. (Right, Grampie?)

We'll see. We haven't decided on any of the little stuff yet, so I'd love to hear other ideas.

So, what do all of the rest of you have planned?

Our little ghost

So, R's Halloween costume has been completed - and no, it's not a sheet full of holes. But maybe we should have gone the ghost route? She's been getting into this game of peek-a-boos. I know, she came a little late to it, as I know her peers were covering their eyes at half her age. But the way she does it is so distinctly R. She puts her hands over her face and sometimes she closes her eyes and other times, she's peeking in between her fingers. Then she waits. We watch. We wait. She waits. Then you hear, just barely, as if she's muttering to herself, this little "boo." And her "b" sound is a little different. Kind of like the spanish "v". A little bit of a "bvoo." It's short. It's quiet. And then the hands come out, and you see that all the while she has this impish little grin. Of course, we respond with our own "boo!" or "gasp!" or "There she is!" (this last after going on about looking for R while her hands cover her eyes). And she smiles really big and puts those hands right back up in place. What an excellent little ghost she would be.

She will in fact be a cat for Halloween. And a fine cat she will be. If you ask her what the cat says, she will often tell you "maow." She also says and signs cat and she loves to follow our own cats around. Not to mention she has taken a liking to her tail (if not her ears). So she will be a natural as a cat. I have no regrets.

But then again. We bought a stand-up ghost decoration for our porch at the last orchard visit and R really loves pointing at it and saying "bvoo" or when I tell her what it is "goad." Maybe we'll have to cut some holes in a sheet after all.

(She also likes to say hi to both the cat and the ghost).

Maybe we should have gotten the stroller?

Before they left, GiGi and PopPop gave us some money to get a little something for R. J and I had been talking about possibly getting R a stroller for her doll, and GiGi and PopPop suggested that that we pick one up for her.

On Sunday, J and I made it to Target, but instead of getting the stroller, we got this little high chair for her. We thought she would have a lot of fun feeding her doll and putting it in and out of the high chair, since she already does this with her regular high chair.

When we showed it to her, though, all she wanted to do was push it around.

(Fortunately, that's not the only thing she's wanted to do with it--she has fed the baby a whole mess of times since yesterday.)

Photo Shoot

J and R and I had a family photo shoot about three weeks ago. We went to a local park and got some photos taken of us just goofing off and being together. It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed the time we spent outside. We'll definitely have to go back there and just let her run around and enjoy the trail.