2 weeks ago-

Jane: "Mom I want to sell my pink dollhouse so I can get a big one with stairs like the one at costco"

Ohh my little ebayby. Luckily we had already started building one.

After upwards of 40 man(/woman) hours and many late nights we have our Crap n' Scrap dollhouse for Jane complete with bathroom, bedroom, living room, kitchen , attic, and coming soon - petshop, preschool and possibly grocery store if I don't shoot myself first (not to mention the spiral staircase. kudos to dan). We call it "Crap n' Scrap" because it's built almost entirely from crap around the house and scrap wood (including broken bowls, old lotion containers, useless toys and old fabric). Only new stuff are the knobs, attic dresser, wall paper and the flower pot table stands and lamp shades.

My worst fear was she would look at and say "but Mooooooom I wanted the one from costco." Luckily she loved the one she had

Amber:"Jane do you want to go see the Nutcracker ballet?"
Jane: "Yeah mom. I want to go. But I want you to do it."
--riiiiigght
Amber:"You know mama has a lot of strengths but Ballet just isn't one of them. I don't know how to do that."
Jane: "Oh you just lift up one foot and put it underneath you"


Yesterday we told Jane about Santa Claus in the only way I could do it. For some reason I haven't been able to just tell her he's real. I've tried -- and I should add a don't have any issue with people doing it. I love it as a kid. I just can't.-- So anyway I told her a whole story about Father Nicholas giving presents to the kids for Christmas. And how they made him a Saint. And then "So the story goes that Saint Nicholas lived on and on Christmas Eve goes into the children's houses and gives them presents"
Jane: "Santa Claus?"
Dan: "Yes and he comes down your chimney.
Jane: "WHAT?" -- with an "are you kidding me" disbelieving tone
Dan: Yeah and comes in a sleigh with reindeer. Do you know what reindeer are?"
Jane: "Yes."
Dan: "and the reindeer fly"
Jane: "Reindeer Don't fly"
Amber: "They do in stories."
Jane: "WHAT?"

classic

Toddler Slang --

On the way to preschool the other day Jane called from the back seat. "Hey mom we're going to preese. That's what I'm calling preschool. It's preese. Let's go to preese mom"

Other recently created by jane nicknames/slang terms of note?
Mac'n -- Macaroni n' cheese
Airp -- an airplane flying over head.

If she starts referring to her grandparents as papa-g and g'ma I'll be worried.

Family fishing at horning's hideaway (hideout maybe?). It's a pond with a park and loads of peacocks walking around -- seriously like 30 just walking all over the place.
That's Jane's very first pole (yes it is a push button dora pole). She loved it--almost as much as her daddy. We have a video which I will try to load but I don't know if it will work. Sadly we didn't get any still pics of her fishing. Josh liked it too -- he enjoyed crawling around in the mud and climbing the hill and generally being far too close to the water.

Halloween breakfast this morning. The hat, top and baby carrier were all mine as a kid. Jane was pretty excited about that.


stay tuned for Trunk or Treat and Disney on Ice (yes you read that right) pictures!

ok i'm downright mad becasue i did this post a week ago and didn't publish it. But I'll be giving myself the speed credit anyway (if not the genius credit)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSH!

It was a fun day. Pretty much the typical 1 year old birthday. He has no idea why the people are smiling, staring and singing horridly off tune but he gets this yummy pile of stuff the big weird people keep calling "cake"... And he likes cake.






I don't know if he just couldn't pick it up or what but he just held it down there...apparently he doesn't go for that whole bring the mountain to Muhammad thing.



and then daddy gave him a 'tap shower'. Still smiling.


So Josh's favorite things of late are:

balls -- And by balls I mean really anything that can be thrown, rolled or caught which is really everything. I admit I've played catch with a water filled daiper (I thought it was better than a used one). Te was at a soccer practice today and was attempting to horde 3 balls at once. As they are all bigger than he is, this did not go well. (on a side note jane took a ball over to the goal, kicked it in and started jumping up and down cheering.)
banging on the keyboard and dancing (he bounces whenever we sing)
grabbing people's noses (waiting for the 'honk')
being tickled (which pleases me of course)
peekaboo the cell phone (how many phones before mom learns her lesson?)

He took his first official step the other day. He's nowhere near steady but he's on his way. Jane and josh play together a lot. It's the best when I'm putting jane to bed and josh crawls in, on top of her and starts giggling and then she starts as well. It's not a very effective nap-time technique but she's not really napping anymore anyway (alas).

Jane is liking preschool. She sings the songs all day long and makes up some of her own. Usually they are a narrative of what's going on "I'm getting my book because i want to read and it's a bo-o-o-o-k and it's really good..." you get the idea.

I had a traumatic realization today. I was dropping jane off at nursery at the usual time. On the door was posted a list of "senior nursery" and "older senior nursery" I thought this was odd but figured they were just splitting up the nursery like they had been talking about. But no... the "older nursery" of which Jane is a member, has been splitting off the second hour to TRANSITION TO SUNBEAMS. My little baby... my tiny little girl is going to be in primary in 2 months. Don't ask me why I've never put this together or even considered it. It just did not occur to me.

Jane praying

"and please bless the food that it will make us strong like an ox. and joshy that he'll be a baby ox....
and please bless daddy fishing keep him safe from falling in the river and that he will catch a fish and bring it home and we will eat it and next week we will go fishing..."

Okay this is a mass update here. Lots of pics from summer. Alas it is leaving us.








First haircut.





And current stuff: Happy Birthday to Jane. We had a princess party (no. aliens have not taken over my body). Not exactly a continuous theme there but whatever. It was really fun. Jane had a great time and held it together -- thanks to us not singing the happy birthday song which for some reason she really dislikes. I tried to sing it earlier in the day but she would have none of it. NO MAMA DON'T SING THAT SONG SING A DIFFERENT HAPPY BIRTHDAY SONG" Good thing I know several.

AND We had an awesome cake thanks to our friend Darcy.

So Jane starts preschool in two weeks. So weird. She's a little miss personality lately. The following conversations happened a couple weeks ago

Jane: "Mama can I have a comptuder?" --comptuder is how she says it in case that wasn't clear
Me: "No honey. Computers are really expensive"
Jane:"Well maybe just a small one"
LATER IN THE CAR
Me to Dan: "So Jane asked if she could have a computer"
Dan :"Oh really?"
Jane:"Yes but mama said that comptuders are expensive... but i'm an expensive girl."

Oh dear. Oh d-d-d-d-dear. She is completely precious.

Jane and Josh both get so excited when the other one wakes up. It's fun to see them playing together -- though not surprisingly it does not always end well.

Josh is cruising along the furniture and still eating us out of house and home. He also starts to dance whenever anyone sings (which I am required to do often by the demands of Jane) He just bounces up and down on his bum smiling.

Anyway pictures. here they are.





josh was not pleased by this point.

Drugs Don't Mean...
We're driving down the streets of Portland this evening. The city, always full of more than it's fair share of oddballs, certainly did not let us down today. I looked out the window at a grown man sidewalk-chalking, very determinedly I might add, the following statement:

"Drugs Don't Mean Stupid"

He saw me smile at it and started gesturing in a "you know what I'm talking about" way. I was too sad for the man to tell him that I was, in fact, not laughing with but at him; that despite his noble efforts he was really proving the "man" right on this one.

Sorry, noble sir. It appears that drugs do, in fact, mean stupid.

Anyway Josh is crawling. He's a determined little booger and deceptively fast. His favorite things seem to be cords, electrical outlets, anything resembling a phone or remote control, paper and miniscule items of varying sorts. Splendid.

He loves to feed himself -- and by 'loves' I mean that he will bounce up and down in his seat and flail around until you provide him with something to grab. He's very efficient at it which is extremely helpful. He will smile and laugh (his laugh sounds like a muppet) any time someone looks at him. He's extremely tickllish -- which is great for me as tickling is one of my favorite things. We're having a great time with him. It's getting really fun.

Jane is great. She loves flowers lately. She picks some for me everyday and points them out wherever she goes. She is also big fan of princesses. She requested a Princess pinata for her birthday. I agreed since that way she'll get her princess and I'll get to see one beaten with a stick so really everyone's a winner. Although it occurs to me now maybe she doesn't really get the point of the pinata....hmmm that could be disturbing. Anyway we went to the mall the other day to escape the heat. A balloon man made her a cinderella balloon (it was unreal.) She was very excited. She also loves music. Her favorites to date are "Somewhere Beyond the Sea" (that's our song) "Here Comes the Sun" (and all Beatles really) and "people watching" by Jack Johnson.

Sorry about the lack of pics. We need to do an upload.

Alrighty here are some up to date photos. We are doing well. Josh is getting over strep (poor kid seems to always be sick but always happy). Jane is just jane all over. It's an exciting life.





seriously it had to be added. I mean look at that tongue.

We make these look good.

special thanks to mel for the models' ensembles (this would have been printed for your birthday mel, but my printer sent out a blank page.)


2 kids who won't wear hats. Well if that's their vice then I'll take it.






The things kids say: Jane was pumping her legs back and forth on the swings. Dan said "jane you're pumping" Jane says "yeah just like mama's nipples."

okay pics are below. As always they are a bit old. Whatever.

After a few rough weeks (highlighted by 3 ER trips in 3 days) We are doing well. The kids are great. Josh is freakishly happy. He is never in a bad mood except when being put to bed. A couple nurses in the E.R. came in to see the happy kid with RSV. They said he was the most cooperative baby they had seen. I kept having to swear up and down that the boy was really sick b/c he was just laying there laughing. It's amazing. He's also a huge 20lbs-- even bigger than jane was. It's amazing my biceps aren't bigger than dan's by now (they remain as puny and helpless as ever). We refer to him as our "retirement plan"

Jane is cracking us up lately (and stressing us out as all 2 year olds will) Lately everything is "one of her favorites" and a game.

"ooh I love strawberries they're one of my favorites"
"mama you saw that? I put that toy over there and that was a game. You saw that toy game?"
I think maybe I need to stop pretending all unpleasant things are games.

She LOVES her daddy. She makes me sing "I'm so glad when daddy comes home" constantly and shrieks when he comes in the door. She will love me someday I'm sure.

and here's the always happy baby




And representing hours of dedicated time and effort is this lovely fish. It tasted good.

The following was far too audibly stated by Jane on 3 separate occasions during church:
"Mama, Josh can't eat the bread. He only eats your nipple"

yes. that is true jane. Too much information for the common churchgoer? yes, but indisputably true.

I poked dan in the leg. Jane said "mama you go to timeout in my room." I followed her to her room. "sit right here...okay so mom, listen to me, you don't hit my daddy. that's not a game. that's very dangerous now count to ten."

Josh is all giggles and smiles. Even though he's been sick for a week he's still in a good mood. All you have to do is look at him and he'll giggle for you. I love it!

Jane: "Mama I'm sorry but I need to make a phone call"
Me; "ok here you go"
Jane:"Hello How are you?...mmmhmm mmhmm. Good we're just hanging out. okay bye"

So at long last here are our christmas pics for all our viewers to see (both of you!) Jane had a great time (though her parents might have enjoyed it even more) It's fun to have a kid aware of presents and all that. She loved all of them.. especially her baby in a backpack (thanks Charisty) and, to her mother's slight dismay, her polly pocket Cinderella. ouch. BUT to even things out she also loves her lacrosse stick and the guitar she got a month later so I am appeased (and not a little proud of myself for allowing the child to be who she wants... just don't expect me to film it :) We had a great time in Royal.. especially Jane. She was calm and happy playing with her cousins and spending at least 2 days in a pink princess dressup dress (again to her mother's slight dismay). Good times... noodle salad.


Uhhh if kids still believe in S.C. you may want to not have them watch the following





"Umm what the heck am I doing here mom?"


Practicing the game face

i know it's blurry but whatever. Let me feel my pride.




it just doesn't feel like a Royal Christmas without it...


moves.


also check back soon... we have more photos and videos but this is taking forever so you'll just have to wait!