qotd

At breakfast this morning, Maddie noticed that I was sitting in "Daddy's chair." Seizing the moment to talk about sharing, I explained to her that Daddy and I share the chair. Sometimes Daddy sits in the chair, and sometimes Mommy sits in the chair. I added that when she gets to be a little bigger and doesn't need her booster anymore, then she can also sit the chair. Maddie's response:
"When you get to be little like Maddie and I get to be big like you, you can have my chair and I can share your chair and put my feet down."

another maddie-ism

Lately, Maddie has been adding 'my' to people, as in...
Hello, my daddy! It's good to see you!
Good job, my Caleb!
What are you doing, my mommy?

kitchen window

qotd

On the way home from Nonna's house this morning, Maddie blurted out excitedly,
"Nonna show me a pitchurck and I saw my wittle self in the wittle pitchurck!"
"Oh, were you little like Caleb?"
"No. I was wittle wike a Maddie."

memory verses

In an effort to help Maddie apply the bible verses she has memorized, I had her act out scenarios of each verse while I took photos. We're going to print out the photos and make a book of her bible verses, adding to it as she learns new ones. As you can see, Maddie loved this activity! I haven't posted all the photos, but some of the pictures were just too cute.

'Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.'

Here is Maddie coming to me right away and cheerfully.

Here she is putting away her toys--need I say cheerfully? :)

Here she is ready to go potty when I say it's time to go.

'Do everything WITHOUT complaining.'

Instead, 'Rejoice in the Lord always.'

'Christ died for our sins'
(She counts each word out on her fingers-- we got that from Mike Bullmore.)

'Love is patient, love is kind.'

Helping Caleb.

And my personal favorite,
bringing Caleb his cup of juice.

maddie-isms

A few of my current favorites:
Open the light please.
I'm putting it in the backsick. (basket)
Look! It's the same pitchurck! (She loves to find the cover picture on a book inside the book.)
I eating fishpies. (That's 'french fries'--yes, we do not eat fast food very often.)

antshillvania

This post is an unusual one--it's for all my friends who grew up in the 80s listening to Music Machine, Bullfrogs & Butterflies, and such. Yesterday I got the kids in the car and set out to run a quick errand and realized I didn't have any music for them. However, I noticed there was an old cassette tape my mother-in-law had given us recently--Antshillvania. Having nothing else (and hoping it would still work!), I popped it in. I cannot remember the last time I saw a cassette tape let alone listened to one, but yes our van is old enough that it has a cassette player.

If you had asked me what I remembered about Antshillvania, I would have said, 'Antsy, antsy, antshillvania' and that's about it. But it's amazing, once I started listening to it I realized it's all still there in my memory. While I was driving, I found myself singing along in my head to every song, words coming out of nowhere. I've read that some scientists theorize that we don't forget anything, but it's just a matter of having the right 'help' to trigger the memory. I can see why they might say that.

It's great listening to it as an adult--I actually understand the cheesy humor! 'He was the command-ant' and 'I was so ignor-ant' and 'Kill the fatted aphid!' I was noticing the really vintage sound--a lot of the music is 40's jitterbuggy kind of music. But the actual sound reminded me of really old Mickey Mouse cartoons, if you've ever seen some of the originals. Then it hit me--it probably has a really 'vintage' sound because it's an old cassette tape! Hah.

Anyway, both my kids really liked the catchy music, and I found a place on the web you can order the cds. Check out: www.agapelandmusic.com (That's where the blurry photo came from.) Enjoy!

* Big Bobe News *

Caleb took his first steps yesterday! Hooray!

K-bobe

Caleb's finally cutting a top front tooth. I will miss his toothless smiles.

qotd

Last night I was getting Madeleine ready for bed. I was wiping her face with a wet washcloth. I said, "There, doesn't that feel nice?" She replied, "Yes, Mommy, that feels nice. It is refresh!"

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Maddie was helping me this morning by getting a new diaper for me while I was changing Caleb's dirty diaper. She looked in the basket to pull out a diaper and saw a small toy that had somehow found its way in there. She then exclaimed, "Mommy, look! Our little person! I found it! It was a mystery."

what's new with caleb?

Well, among other things, he woke up this morning with some amazing bedhead!

Caleb can now point to his nose, head, belly, and we're working on ears. However, he only does it when he is "in the mood"--not necessarily on demand.

Yesterday I learned that Caleb likes coffee. I'm surprised, but really I shouldn't be seeing as Braden--Mr. Home Roaster and Coffee Connoisseur--is his father. Braden made me one of his yummy iced lattes. Caleb saw that I was drinking and as usual wanted a sip. I said, "Okay, Buddy, but I don't think you're going to like it," (no sugar). Well, I was wrong, he drank about 6 or 7 sips before he was done. Don't worry--I only drink decaf! :)

This is Buddy's little curl at the back of his neck.

One of Caleb's latest things to do is crawl around with toys in his mouth like this...

If he doesn't have a toy in his mouth these days, then he's got something in his mouth that he's picked up off the floor. Despite my best efforts to keep the floors clean, he manages to find little things to eat. The other day he chewed on a tiny leaf from one of our boxwood bushes that somehow had been tracked into the house--yes, according to poison control they are poisonous. This is Caleb's "I've got something in my mouth and I don't want you to get it" face.


But the biggest Caleb-news by far is that he knows his first letter! Yes, he really does--the letter 'O'. Tuesday we were at my parents' house for dinner. My mom was holding Caleb and feeding him Trader Joe's cheerios. She began to tell him that cheerios are 'O's and she showed him the big red 'O' on the box. Well then she asked him to show her the 'O' and he did! Then Caleb showed her all the 'O's all over the box. On Friday I tried again, and right away he showed me the 'O' again--and all the other 'O's. This morning, he saw my bible and there is a circular logo on the front. He pointed to it and babbled on to me. I said, "That's right, that's an 'O'." Then I asked him to show me the other 'O', which was in the word 'holy'--and my little buddy did!

qotd

On our family walk tonight, we stopped at a nearby baseball field and spent a few minutes watching a game. As we were watching, Maddie and Daddy had a conversation that went something like this:
Daddy, you get in the game and play too?
No, Maddie, Daddy doesn't play this game anymore. But when I was younger I played it.
When we get to be mans, we can play soccer balls and games like those mans!

One more comment Maddie made that had us laughing was when Braden picked up both kids and was carrying them together--she exclaimed:
Daddy, you carry TWO children now!

(I know, it doesn't read so funny, but if you could have heard the way she said it, you would have chuckled right along with us.)

qotd

This evening Maddie and Caleb were playing with toys, and sharing is something new we are working on with Maddie. Maddie had just set one toy down and Caleb picked it up. Maddie said, I was playing with that at 10 o'clock but Caleb has it now.

maddie vignettes

Sometimes when we go to leave the house, Maddie will walk out on the porch, clap her hands together in an exaggerated and excited way and proudly proclaim-- I found it! There's the car! I found it! Or a variation of this would be when Larissa is leaving our house and walking to her car, Maddie will say--Lala, it's the bwoo one, over there! That one! That bwoo one! We like to play around with her a little and say, "Where? Which one?" and she'll keep going on and on.

Maddie calls our house 'the paint-house.' As in--Are we going back to our paint-house? or There's our paint-house! The best we can figure out as to how she came up with that one is last summer when we were getting our townhouse ready to sell, Garrick came over to paint the trim outside. She got scared because she heard noises, so I told her Garrick was painting, and we went outside and watched him for a few minutes. So whenever he would come back to help us work on something, she'd say, Gare paint house? And we'd say, yes. So, when we bought our new house and started renovating, we'd tell Maddie that Daddy and Gare were going to work on the house, and she'd say, Gare and Daddy paint house? And that quickly became, Daddy go to the paint-house. And so still it remains the paint-house.

When Maddie changes into her jammies, she'll say of her belly, Look at my fats! or I'm fat! It's funny because she is--but she doesn't mean 'fat,' she means her skin. When Caleb crawls around shirtless, she'll say, Caleb, you're fat! or You have fats! The other day I was wearing shorts and sitting on the couch and Maddie came up to me, rubbed my shins, and said, Mommy, are your legs fat?

Yesterday we were at Braden's parents' house for lunch. I was washing Maddie's hands with her when she said, Mommy, my hair is gooolden. Is your hair golden? It was obviously a word she had just picked up--as it turns out, Granny had been reading 'Alice in Wonderland' to her.