The Two of Them

Him

Oh my sweet Brian boy.  My first born.  He made me a mommy.  He is so incredibly handsome.  Hi smile can melt me in an instant.   His heart is fierce.  He is brave and he overcomes.  He is tough.  He is compassionate.  He loves to learn, to "read," and to be read to.  He is smart and so very stubborn.  He loves to laugh and to make others laugh.  He loves to sing.  Oh and those big, big galaxy eyes.  He can stare right through you.  He is silly.  He jumps in puddles and loves to be tickled.  He is so, so sensitive and can be very shy.   He is quite creative and loves to "make something."   He is all boy...he loves to run and play.

Her

My sweet baby LuLu.  My baby girl.  She is just so beautiful with her soft red curls and dimples.  She is a precocious little imp.  She is outgoing and happy.  She is funny and she enjoys it.  Her little voice makes me smile.  She is tough.  She loves to cuddle. She loves to be read to just like him.  She loves her babies and all of his toys!  She loves to shop and she loves shoes.  She is my sleeper and my eater.  It's hard to find a food she will not try.  Her big, blue, dazzling eyes and easy smile make me smile.  Just watching her figure things out makes me smile.  She has a whole heck of a lot of attitude and boy is she stubborn.

The Two of Them

Watching the two of them together is absolutely amazing.  I love when they make each other laugh.  I love when he tries to explain things to her.  I love that she wants to be big like him.  I love when they talk to each other.  Especially when they "argue."   She just keeps saying "yeah" to make him mad and he'll shout, "no, Lilah, no!"  too funny.  I love when they read together.  I love when one of them is upset or hurt and they other is concerned and wants to fix it.  I love it when someone captures a picture of the two of them and it's good of them both.  This was what I wanted for Christmas, and I got it!

 Merry Christmas!  I hope yours was as full and blessed as ours.  Now LET IT SNOW!

November

Thought I should post a few random November pictures before the holiday posts begin!  We were lucky to have a pre-Thanksgiving meal at Shawn's aunt Bibber's house early in the month.  Lilah and Gavin and too cute together!

I tried three different times to get a fall picture of the kids by our big tree out back.  It's much harder now that Lilah is so active.  These are a few of the good ones.

 And just some random fall pictures...

We also celebrated my birthday with a national holiday.  Yep, my birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year!  Good food, good friends and good family = great birthday and holiday!

A Love for Reading

It is very important to me that my kids love to read.  I was a reader growing up and still would be if I could ever find the time...haha!  I'm a teacher for goodness sakes so of course I am going to promote reading!

Brian was easy.  I read to him when I was pregnant.  Often.  Shawn recorded "Where the Wild Things Are" and I played that to Brian in my belly.  Over and over.  He loved to be read to from a very young age.  As soon as he was able he would go get books for us to read to him.  He would sit and look at books for hours.  Now that he's in preschool, he comes home each week so proud of the new letter/sound he has learned.  And I cannot wait for him to be able to put them all together and read to himself.  For real.  He's going to LOVE it!

Lilah was a different story.  Let's face it, there just isn't time to read to the 2nd baby while pregnant when there is a toddler running around.  I tried to read to Lilah in my belly...and did...some.  But not nearly as much as with Brian.  I played "Where the Wild Things Are" read by Shawn to her...once....maybe twice.  I honestly didn't read to her when she was very young.  Not much anyway.  I just couldn't find the time.  I would read to Brian with her around, but his books her too advanced for her really.  I started to get worried when she became mobile and her idea of "reading" was chewing on the books.  I mean, the girl loves to eat, but books?!  So Shawn and I made more of an effort to read to her.  But she really wasn't too interested.  She would tolerate it for awhile, but eventually she would find something else to do.

Recently that has all changed.  Lilah is finally into books.  She brings them to us and says "books" in her sweet little baby voice.  Brian "reads" to her often.  He has several of her books memorized and it's so cute to see them reading together.  They even fight over the toy catalogs that come in the mail.  And demand that I hand them over as soon and I bring one in the house!  They read in the car pretty much all the time.  Last night Lilah even wanted to take a book into the bathtub.  Luckily I remembered we had a bath book of Brian's so she took that into the tub.  I love my little readers!

Brian reading to his cars!

Not sure why they like to read on the steps!

We pulled out the basket of Christmas books which sparked a reading frenzy before bath time!

Don't Want to Forget the Little Things

Just a few things that I wanted to share, and I didn't want to ever forget...

*Yesterday, Brian was very excited to tell me that he ate lunch by Josie.  She had a Dora lunchbox!  I have been hearing about Josie since the first day of school pretty much.  She's the teacher's (blonde-of course) daughter.  I happened to drop Brian off at school yesterday too and I got to see the two of them interact.  Let's just say, the feelings are mutual.

*Over the weekend Brian wanted to stay over at Nana and Pappy's.  Mom told him to go ask Pappy.  He went over and said, "pleeeeaase."  Of course, Dad said okay.  Not to be outdone, Lilah went over to Dad and said "pleeeeaase."  The entire room erupted with laughter. 

*Brian told me in the car today that since Batman and all the super heroes fight crime at night, that makes them nocturnal.  Yep, sure does buddy!

*Lilah says "yeah" to almost anything.  She knows "no" though.  She'll say no if you ask her if she wants a time out.  Shawn is a huge fan of asking her if she is going to take over the world.  "Yeah."

*Monday I realized (again) how much I love being a "stay at home" mom.  (Or how lucky I am to get to take my kids to work with me, which is really what I do.)  We had conferences at the preschool and Shawn was off work so I left the kiddos with him when I left early in the morning.  I was sick over it.  I am not cut off to leave my babies and go to work!  (Not an attack on any moms who do work, just how my heart works.)

*Having lost 34.5 lbs, my hubby was taken OFF his blood pressure medicine today.  Way to go, Shawn! 

Those Looks She Gives

Many people have commented on the nasty looks Miss Lilah is capable of giving.  She has quite the attitude and has no problem letting you know if she is annoyed with you.  The doctor told me at her 15 month check up that I should "expect more attitude" over the next three months.  Um, really?  Is that even possible?  Lord help me! 

Lilah giving Brian one of her famous looks for taking something away from her in the car.

Trick or Treat Brrrr!

 As mentioned in my previous post, Halloween was not pleasant weather-wise.  Brian made it up and down about half of our street.  Lilah made it up and Nana took her home.  It was so rainy and cold and yucky!  

Luckily the kids enjoyed passing out candy just as much as they enjoyed receiving it.  They were so excited to have people coming to our door!  (Lilah was eating M & Ms in her all white costume-hence the ridiculous bib.)

Just one more Halloween pic.  This is of Lilah saying "boo"!

Happy Halloween 2012!

Brian could not be more excited for Halloween this year.  I remember back when we started speech therapy.  It was right before Christmas.  My biggest wish?  I wanted Brian to be excited about Christmas...and be able to verbalize it.  I am finally getting my wish.  Just a different holiday!

He decided to be a bat.  In July.  He also assigned costumes to everyone else in our house.  Lilah would be a ghost.  Mommy would be a witch.  Daddy would be her cat.  He got one of out of three.  Lilah is a ghost today. 

We were so lucky to have a friend and co worker of mine, "Ms. Shari," to make the kids costumes this year.  The best part?  Brian tells everyone she made them.  He even told Lilah today that we had to go to the office at Mommy's work to thank Ms. Shari for making her a ghost.  How's that for progress?   Well that may not be the best part.  The best part is the actual costumes.  Oh my word!  They are ADORABLE.  Thank you Ms. Shari!!

We have spent a lot of time at various pumpkin patches the past few weeks.  We went with a group of friends to kick off the month.  Then I went with Brian and his class about a week ago.  Finally, Lilah got to go with my class that same week. 

Friday night we went to a Halloween party at Brian's school.  Addison came with us and the kids had such a great time!  Baby Kangaroo came along.  He dressed up too.  As a girl.  (Brian put one of Lilah's doll sweaters on him-hahahah!)

Then last night we carved one of our pumpkins.  Lilah didn't understand that you are supposed to wait to eat the seeds until they are roasted.  Ooops!

Today Lilah and I went to Brian's school to see the Vocabulary Parade.  All the kids dressed up, but had to wear a tag with a vocabulary word relating to their costume.  Brian's word was nocturnal.  You should hear him say it.  What a big boy!  His definition was bats fly at night.  He had it down pat!  He also learned a song about bats to sing at school.  He's just adorable when he sings it!  We've also been singing a Happy Halloween song that ends by yelling BOO.  Lilah is really good at that.  She's too precious!

Too bad it's rainy and 40 degrees today.  Trick or treating will be short.  We are going to hit up the grocery store for their trick or treat after Brian gets off school.  Hopefully he will get his fill there!!

Playing Catch Up

Before posting a few Halloween pictures, I wanted to make sure to play catch up regarding our last few weeks.  Poor Lilah has gone from her first stomach bug, to getting 5 new teeth (4 molars), to another sinusy virus, to a sinusy infection in the last month.  She has not been her pleasant, sweet self for most of the past month and I feel so bad for her.  She is on an antibiotic now and yesterday I caught a glimpse of her normal behavior for about an hour, so hopefully we are heading in the right direction with her!

Brian had an accident a couple of weeks ago that sent us to the ER.  We were at the car wash and Shawn started to shut the trunk not realized Brian was reaching in the trunk at the exact same time.  He got a sizable cut on the top of his head and of course it bled like crazy because it was his head.  The worst part was  that we were at the car wash and couldn't leave until our cars had made it through the line.  Ahhh!  The ER doctor didn't put in any staples or stitches.  He said he could put one staple in, but felt it wasn't worth the trauma it would cause Brian.  Whew!  Brian was pretty much unaffected by it all.  He cried when it happened, threw a fit about going to the doctor, but was running around in the hospital waiting room like nothing even happened.  He did tell me the other day though that he doesn't want to go get the car washed!

Lilah, 15 Months

Last week we visited Dr. Price for Lilah's 15 month check up.  She was 24 lbs 4.5 oz and 31.5 inches long.  She's big, but not as big as her brother.  She was NOT a happy camper about her 3 shots, but she recovered quickly.  The doctor said knowing body parts and animal sounds are 18 month skills, so that made me smile!

Here are some other things she is doing at 15 months, just so I don't forget...
*Holding a crayon/pencil correctly.
*Throwing appropriate things in the trash can.
*Dribbling a soccer ball.
*Saying Mama,  Dada, Bubba, Nana, Pap for Pappy, Teri, Jon, dog, ball, dis (this), dat (that), book, poppoppop (popsicle), bee, wawa (water), ish (fish), hiii (hi) and several other words, but not all consistently.
*Climbing the ladder on the play set with ease and sliding down the slide on her bottom and belly without assistance.
*Flushing the toilet.  Often.
*Turning on the washer and dryer whether there are clothes in them or not.  Often.  Mostly when it's unnecessary.

And just one fun anecdote I don't want to forget.  I took Lilah with me to the "lady doctor" yesterday.  She was in rare form.  When I got undressed, she tried to get undressed.  Then while the doctor was talking to me-mind you I hadn't even touched the table or stirrups yet-Lilah laid back on my lap and threw her legs up in the air in a full straddle.  The doctor said, "I guess she's ready for her check up!"

Oh that little girl.  She's a total crack up.

And of course a few pictures of the little ham...