Sunday, September 6, 2009

baby wearing





camel ride



This is Rebecca's camel friend, Sassy.

As she was walking down the steps after her ride, she looked at me solemnly and said "I had a very nice time on the camel, Mom." Naturally this was exactly one second after I had turned off the video camera.

Zoo day!

A few weeks ago we took a mini-vacation down to Grand Rapids for the weekend. We spent most of the time taking the girls to the zoo and we had SO MUCH FUN!

Rebecca loved seeing all of the animals. Madeline loved sleeping in the moby wrap and sling. Brian and I loved hauling crap in the stroller. Ha :)

Penguins- I swear I liked it more than Rebecca did. I'm a dork.


Isn't she just too cool for school?




Smiling baby



Madeline's first camera smile
Her first smile was for me on my birthday- best present ever :)

Friday, September 4, 2009

DRAMA!

Yesterday Rebecca was walking down our front steps as I was getting Madeline into the car. Suddenly, Rebecca was leaning against the car sobbing.

I rushed over to her and surveyed the situation. I didn't notice anything wrong. I ask her what her beef was and she cried back "My leg just almost broke off!"

Ha. I asked her what happened and she said the same thing again. So I asked if she tripped on a step? No. Did she trip on a rock? No. Did she trip at all? No.

All I could deduce was that her leg almost broke off. But why, we'll never know.

She's so conscientious

Last weekend Brian and I woke up to hearing Rebecca open her bedroom door (a trick she had learned the day before). She opened the door, looked out and could see that we were still in bed since the house was completely dark, then closed her door. Then a beat passes and we hear a quite voice "I'm ready to get up Mooooooom".

Then, the following day we were up at the cabin when she wanted to play with the "Dora spinner" (A sit and spin that plays Dora sounds. Aka the bane of my cabin existence- that freaking song gets stuck in my head for daaaaays). I was nursing Madeline and Brian was out putting up tree stands, but Becca wanted the spinner out. I told her to go ahead and grab it from the toy area behind the couch. She stared blankly at me for a moment, then asked again for me to get it.

After a moment I realized that she didn't want to go to the toy area since she'd have to go past the wood burning stove, which we've told her before not to touch since it's hot.

After realizing this was the problem I assured her that I was telling her that this time it was ok, the stove wasn't hot, it wasn't on, and she could just grab the Dora spinner and come back to me.

She dropped her head and burst into tears. "I can't Mama! I can't go back there because of the stooooooove".

I'm so glad she listens to us. Sometimes. When she feels like it :)

Friday, July 24, 2009

See this look?


The look of worry, confusion or concern? That's Madelines standard look. I call it the wrinkly forehead look.

Madeline, ultimate fighter?



Put 'em up!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

July 4th




On 4th of July weekend we went up to the cabin to spend some time with Brian's aunt and uncle, visiting from Alaska.
Rebecca adores the cabin, it's one of her favorite places on earth. Uncle Ken taught Rebecca how to play baseball!

At one point he asked if she wanted to throw it instead of hit it and she replied "No, I just want to baseball it" with a slight life of her bat.

Becca the Big Sister

She loves being a big sister!


Introducing




Rebecca is a big sister! Madeline Olivia entered the world on Father's day, Sunday June 21 at 3:43am!

Rebecca loves her. She's fantastic with her- gentle and sweet. She loves giving her hus and kisses.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Proof that my child is smarter than me

I have contended for a long time now that Rebecca is smarter than I am. It's ok. I'm good with it. She's brilliant. But does she really have to prove it all the time? Little showoff.

She's recently discovered the wonder that is Dora the Explorer. Unfortunately this also co-incided with Brian discovering that season 1 & 2 of Dora is available on Netflix's Watch Instantly feature. So Saturday mornings, it's All Dora, All the Time. (Ok not all the time. But dude, that little girl that voices Dora screams everything she says. 24 minute episode = 5 years in Laura Time)

Rebecca has been cutting all 4 of her 2 year molars in the last 2 weeks and she's miserable. This morning she woke up screaming in pain, saying "owie owie" (which is possibly one of the more horrific ways you can imagine to wake up a mother). I went into her room, rubbed her back, then rocked her for a bit while she slept- something we haven't done in months and months. I got all nostolgic and misty. She went back to her bed for about 2.4 seconds before the screaming started again. I finally realized she was not about to go back to sleep, so we got up and changed her for the day, then lay on the couch for a little bit and watched Dora.

As she lay there, I continued to get ready for the day. That is, until I was stopped dead in my tracks by hearing my 2 year old repeating words in spanish. Not only repeating them, but using the exactly perfect correct inflection. "Abre!" (which if my Reject memory serves, that means open?) 4 years of spanish in high school and I can't roll my Rs that well. Then later on, she repeated Abuela (Grandma)and when I asked her who Abuela was, she told me "Dora's Gramma". Duuuuuude.

I know that Ben, our daycare provider/Angel from heaven Chris's husband, speaks spanish around the kids, reads them books in spanish, etc. But dang! I'm so impressed!

So I learned 3 things this morning. 1) That my child speaks better spanish than I do 2) Dora, while obnoxious, apparently actually can teach children a little something and 3) I have to figure out how to e-burn this post entry before Rebecca reaches teen years and can use it as ammo against me with "See!? You don't know everything!"

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Such a big girl

Rebecca is very proud to tell you, she's a very big girl. As of a month or so ago Brian turned around her carseat to face forward. We put it off until now because we feel it's safer for her to face rearward as long as she fits. The time has come. She has reached her (crappy) carseat's height limitations for rear-facing.

We made sure to talk it up how she was going to be facing forwards now because she's such a big girl, isn't it exciting!

The first morning I went to put her in her carseat in my van, I opened the van door and she stopped short. She looked at the seat, then at me and goes "What happened here?" LOL. (Now where would she have heard that? dum de dum.....)
I put her in the seat, explaining how Daddy had turned her seat around like we'd talked about.

As I drove into town Rebecca, as usual, sang to herself her made up songs. This time I turned the radio down to get a better listen. I could see her in the rear-view mirror head bopping from side to side to a beat. Then she bust out "La la. La la. I'm facing forward! I'm facingfooooorward". I about drove off the road laughing.

Then, as we were getting closer to town, she suddenly yelped "Mama! I can see your windshield! And it's RAINING! And you have WIPERS on!" It suddenly had occurred to her that she could see what I was seeing!

She's so proud of herself.
She loves showing everyone she can think of her Big Girl carseat and how it faces FORWARD.

Her newest accomplishment relating to the seat: leaning all about stoplights. She loves to point out to me that the light is red right now so I have to stop, but when it turns green it's my turn to go again. And she'll watch for it. As soon as it's green, I'm to GO GO GO! The little backseat driver. (Who, did you hear? faces FORWARD!)

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Big News

It seems comical that we're just now announcing this on here, but Rebecca is due to be a big sister in approximately 8 weeks.

Baby #2's estimated arrival date is June 13th, meaning Rebecca will be almost exactly 2 1/2 when she becomes a big sister.

We decided not to find out the sex of baby #2, just like we did with Rebecca. Picking out names has been harder this time around, mostly due to me. I keep finding names I love, then telling Brian and he'll agree. We'll have that name as The Name for That Sex for weeks, or in one case, months. Then I suddenly decide it would be a crime to name a child that, yuck how could we, and we're back to square one. I'm pretty sure we won't have names solidified until we actually see and meet him/her.

Rebecca is already is so excited for the baby. Several times a day she, unprompted, gives my belly a big hug and lots of kisses. She strokes my belly and talks to the baby. She tells me "Mama, when the baby comes out, I'm going to look at it". We'll ask her, when she says this, if she's also going to help us hold it, change it, play with it, so on. She'll look very serious for a moment, then say "yes, but I'm going to look at it". I think the suspense is hard for her too :)

This is me, falling off the face of the earth

Oh yeah, right... Rebecca has a blog. Hey, how about that.

So anyway, it's been a good 4 months since I posted last. Whoops.

I'm here now. It's the thought that counts, right? Good.

We've a few updates that need to be made (obviously, since it's been 4 months)but I think they each deserve their own separate posts.