Colba Christmas

This past Saturday we headed up to Augusta for the Colba Christmas. Anna LOVED the experience and by the time we got home on Monday she was saying "We will go visit Grandma and Grandpa tomorrow." Good food for all, good company, good memories. Too bad Kate still isn't the greatest of travellers. At least she's happy and cheerful once we arrive someplace :)


Anna, again, was great about the gift exchange. She enjoyed helping pass out presents, especially the ones she helped make, but of course liked opening gifts the best. She was very sweet about giving "nose kisses", too, as you can see in the picture above.

Grandpa Colba continues to make wonderful pieces of furniture for our family and this year gifted the girls with a set of table and chairs that is just their size. Since we've been home it has certainly been the centerpiece in our basement. It's great for playing games, doing puzzles, coloring, setting up the train, tea parties, etc.


Anna was so sweet about asking Adam and my parents to do things. She'd come up to Grandpa and say "Would you like to play Uno with me?" or she'd approach Adam and say "Can we run laps together?" (of course Grandma showed her a great route for running laps in their house). She is certainly a polite young lady, at least when she's not dealing with Mom and Dad.



Kate was a riot, too, since she learned to growl (literally) while we were there. And since we've been home it's even worse! In fact, this morning she started growling as soon as she was done with her morning feeding, and she does it with a smile on her face, too. This child makes us laugh so much just by the little things she does.



Silly girls also learned that they can tackle and rough-house with just about anyone, Grandma included.

Our Family Christmas

For the second year in a row we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day here in Madison at our own home. We were able to continue a few of the family traditions we started last year and make up a few of our own this year, too :)




Anna and I baked cookies and made special food on Tuesday and then Matt helped with the final preparations on Wednesday morning.


Of course, Anna's idea of "helping" involved quite a bit more clean-up than I would have had normally, but we both had a lot of fun.

For Christmas Eve we had a "fancy" meal, complete with fancy clothes and fancy dishes. Then we packed up and headed out to Christmas Eve service at church. Our church does a beautiful job helping to make this celebration very special, but it was obvious to us by the end of the service that Anna should already have been in bed ...

Christmas morning was wonderful; Anna was very thankful and enjoyed taking turns opening presents ... most of the time.


Kate was a bit overwhelmed by the whole affair. Somehow, in addition to opening presents, she figured out how to really move on Christmas morning. Still not hands and knees crawling, but effective, deliberate army crawling. Because of all that happened, Kate got pretty crabby by the end of our gift opening and she practically fell asleep on Matt's leg ... poor kid!


We had a leisurely day the rest of the day and Anna was thrilled that she got to spend the WHOLE day in her pajamas.

Making us laugh

Here's a few snapshots of the things in our life that make us laugh ...

A few weeks ago Anna walked into the living room with her finger up her nose. Matt said something like "Why do you have your finger up your nose?" Anna's response (without a hint of sarcasm) "Actually, it's in my nostril."

Kate has realized that it's fun to pull Anna's hair. Believe it or not, but Anna thinks it's fun, too. We're trying to discourage the habit, though, since Kate will pull out handfulls of hair at a time.

Anna loves to help me in the kitchen these days, but certainly knows her favorite foods. If I ask her if she wants to help me cook, she'll say "Are we making pumpkin bread?" with a sly grin.

One day last week Kate discovered that she could really jump in the exersaucer. For the next few days she would jump non-stop in the exersaucer for about 5 minutes straight right after she'd get to go in it.

Anna has taken to singing along to hymns during church. Very sweet, but REALLY hard for Matt and I (and anyone else nearby) to keep a straight face with her "singing" as loud as she can.

Longer story here ... McFarland has a holiday parade each year with lighted firetrucks. Fun stuff, right? So Saturday evening we bundled up and headed to a parking lot in town to watch the fire trucks go by. There were about a dozen other families there with the same idea, but about 15 minutes after the parade was supposed to start, we all hear the fire trucks about two blocks away. Oops! Wrong street! We all hustled (me with Kate in the backpack, of course), but only saw the last one go past. Well, we were just a few blocks from the fire station where the parade was supposed to end so Matt said he'd go back, get the van, and meet us there. Since Anna's still a bit pokey when I want to be moving quickly, I had to pick her up, too, for those last few blocks. So here I am with a 7 month old in a backpack, a 2 1/2 year old in front, walking as fast as I can to catch up with a few firetrucks with Christmas lights! It all turned out for the best, though, because we got to see several of the trucks up close as they were backing into the station. And then the whole way home, Anna kept saying "Let's talk about the fire trucks some more! First we didn't see them ... and then we did!"

Another longer story ... Last week Gretchen and Josh were able to come on Tuesday. The kids did great! We decorated Christmas cookies, tried to play Memory (turns out both kids can play with an adult, but not with another kid yet), goofed off downstairs, read books instead of napping, and ended up playing ring around the rosie for awhile.

But the funniest part for me was right after they left when Anna stripped all her clothes off (because she could?) and climbed up onto the piano bench to play the piano ... hmmm. Certainly made me laugh.

On a more news related note, Kate can move now. Certainly not real crawling (although we don't think that's too far off), but she will turn circles, back up, get up on her knees, and has started some army crawling, albeit not very fast (thankfully!). She will also wiggle all over the place when she's sitting and is getting really good at transitioning onto her tummy from sitting.

Also, Anna had her first dentist appointment this morning. She did GREAT, and of course asked lots of questions, especially once she got comfortable. The dentist and I had a mini conversation about the thumb sucking and he's pretty sure that she'll need some kind of ortho work even if she stopped sucking her thumb right now. So we're not going to try too hard to break her of the habit just yet, but we'll probably start saving for braces :)

A few days of holiday cooking this week, a few days of at home Christmas celebrations, then up to Eau Claire for the Colba Christmas this weekend. Should be fun!

What a week!

We had a pretty eventful week last week. It started Monday night with Kate coming down with whatever cold Anna had the previous week. Without going into the details, it was a LONG night for everyone.

Then on Tuesday, Gretchen and Josh were supposed to come hang out with us for the day, but cancelled those plans because of the snow in the forecast. It's a good thing they didn't come because the blizzard came a little earlier than predicted ... and we all needed naps throughout the day after being up in the night.

Also on Tuesday, Matt's grandma Rothe passed away. Her health had been failing for awhile so it wasn't too much of a surprise, but she will certainly be missed.

Wednesday morning we woke up to about 15 inches of snow and got an additional 3 inches during the day. Whew! Matt stayed home to work on clearing out the driveway, which turned into an adventure in itself. Neither of Matt's tractors could handle this snowfall, and neighbor John, who usually helps out with his snowblower if ours don't cut it, announced that the steering linkage on his tractor broke before he got too far on his own driveway. So John and Matt powered out of the driveway in the truck, picked up a spare part for John, fixed John's tractor, and then proceeded to clear off all the snow. Not much of a day off!

Anna and I tried to go sledding at a neighbor's house in the morning while Kate was napping, but the depth of the snow (and the bitter wind!) caused Anna to ask to go home pretty much as soon as we arrived at the neighbor's. Oh, well ... we tried.

Then we found out that Grandma Rothe's funeral arrangements were set for Thursday afternoon. After thinking through our options, Matt decided to drive down to Southern Illinois on his own on Thursday morning for the funeral and then come back late Thursday night.

All went as planned until Matt called around 7:30 on Thursday night saying he was stuck in Bloomington (of all places!) because the alternator on the Honda went out. God certainly had a hand in the timing of that little problem! Not only did we interpret it as His way of saying Matt should NOT drive the rest of the way home that night, but He also made sure the alternator didn't go out 20 miles down the road where there wouldn't be hotels and mechanics close by!

After calling family and friends, we found a good place for him to take the car on Friday morning and he was able to leave town around 11, but wasn't home for good until after 4 since he had to run a few errands here, too. So ... even though Matt wasn't at work for three days last week, it certainly didn't feel like a vacation for anyone in our family!

In addition to all of the craziness last week, we had a busy weekend, too. The Christmas program at church was this past weekend. The girls aren't old enough for it yet, but Matt and I have been doing a puppet show as part of the program for several years now so we spent most of the morning the Saturday before the program practicing and then all of Sunday morning at church, too. Plus, I had plans to go shopping with some friends on Saturday afternoon ... without kids! So Matt took the girls home after the rehearsal on Saturday and spent the afternoon with them while I got the chance to have an afternoon out (certainly much needed after a long week at home).

With all this going on, we still had time yesterday afternoon to get outside and make a snowman (after Matt cleared several hundred pounds of snow off of the roof) while the snow was still fresh and the weather relatively warm (30 degrees?). Anna wasn't too keen on the snow this time either ... still a little too deep.

Winter is here!

A week ago we were playing outside comfortably in the afternoon without hats or gloves. Then, on Thursday, we got the first real snow of the year and we've been out playing in it almost every day since :) We got another couple of inches overnight last night and then a big storm is predicted for this week ... 8-12 inches ... hooray! ... followed by really cold temperatures ... yuck!


It turns out that the little hill going down into the ditch in our front yard provides perfect sledding opportunities for a two year old, and even a 6-month old. Plus, after several days of trial and error, we've finally come up with a combination of clothes for Anna that keep her warm, stay on, and allow her to move (we hadn't quite figured it out yet in the picture below). Bring on the snow!


I'm not sure how Kate feels about the snow, though. Today was the first day I bundled her up to take her out with Anna and me. She seemed to enjoy it, but then had a conniption fit when we came in. Who knows if that was because it was a bit overwhelming when we were outside, or because she wanted to stay out.

Whether or not Kate enjoys the snow, we do know what two of her favorite toys are these days ... a toy knife and a Veggietales carrot girl. For some reason she LOVES to explore both of them with her mouth, often at the same time. Sometimes it's simply hilarious the kinds of faces and poses she gets with both of those toys :)


The other big news in our family this past week was Anna's transition to her "big girl bed" ... a.k.a. a toddler bed. After our hotel stay at Thanksgiving, we realized that since Anna no longer fits comfortably in a pack and play, we needed to transition her out of a contained sleeping space before our next overnight trip at Christmas. So, she helped Matt take down her crib on Friday morning, then set up the toddler bed with Matt, and has successfully taken a nap and slept at night in her bed since. We're realizing more and more what a unique kid Anna is in that we can sell her ideas like the big girl bed without too much stress on anyone's part. She absolutely LOVES the bed and has wanted to show it off to both Matt and I whenever we get back home from going anywhere. She also likes to play around with it and even put her stuffed animals down for nap on it.

Life is certainly different with her new freedom, however. Sunday morning she came stumbling out of her room at 6:15 saying she needed to go potty. Sure enough, she pooped, but then was up for good ... a bit earlier than normal for her. Oh, well. I'd rather take the successful potty experience than an added 40 minutes of sleep for her.

Our Thanksgiving Trip

We packed up last Wednesday and left early on Thursday to meet up with Matt's family in Waterloo, Iowa, for Thanksgiving. All in all, things went well and it was definitely worth any hassle to be able to spend the time with the family.


We spent Thursday afternoon at a local church with Matt's parents, his aunt Mary and her family, Matt's grandparents, and the late-arriving Needham family (including 2-month old Ruth, seen here with Kate who is trying to either grab her or eat her blanket, we weren't quite sure which one she wanted).


Both Anna and Kate did well on Thursday, with Anna surviving a no-nap day and Kate taking a nap in her pack-n-play in the sanctuary of the church. In the evening we all played around in the hotel pool for a bit before putting the girls to bed so we could go back downstairs and visit with family. Thank goodness for far-reaching monitors!


Friday we spent the morning at Matt's grandparents' house, had lunch at Panera, took alternating naps in the afternoon at the hotel, and enjoyed some time with Matt's parents in the evening. Anna, surprisingly, took a nap at the hotel, albeit not a long one, so while Matt and Kate were sleeping, Anna and I headed out to Target to kill some time and then went back for another dip in the pool, or the "cool pool" as Anna calls it ;)

Friday evening Anna wowed her grandparents with her Memory Game skills, as well as her good sportsmanship. Matt and I both remember having hard times as kids (and adults?) with losing so I'm getting Anna started early on how to be a good player. At the end of any game, she shakes hands and says "good game!" and she would (almost) always congratulate someone else on their match.





Kate wowed everyone the whole time with how much she smiles and how expressive her face is. Matt and I tend to get a bit spoiled by the frequency of her smiles and laughs so it's nice to have this kind of reality check every once in awhile.



After we got home and were looking at our pictures, we realized that in just about every shot of Kate, she either has something in her mouth or is trying to put something in her mouth (toys, blankets, boxes, silverware, you name it). I'm glad she's not really moving yet because if she were, I'd be in BIG trouble with all of the things she'd find around the house to stick in that silly mouth!


By Saturday morning we were all ready to go home. This final shot was taken at about 6:15 a.m. We were all awake by this point (and some of us had been for at least 1/2 hour), but I think Kate was the only one who was happy about being up. Surprisingly, Anna did not sleep at all on the 3 hour drive home on Saturday! Poor girl just missed her own bed!


We're pretty well recovered by this point and I even managed to get up most of our Christmas decorations on Sunday and Monday. Already today, Anna has asked almost exclusively for the Christmas books that we keep packed up for the rest of the year. I just hope we don't get sick of them in the coming weeks!

A few of our favorite things ...

Kate has some interesting favorites these days. She LOVES Shadow, more than Mommy, Daddy, and Anna. Shadow, surprisingly, puts up with a lot of pulled fur these days ;)


Kate also enjoys sleeping through the night (again ... finally), only to wake up at 5:30 to start her day. Her favorite thing to do from 5:30 until about 6 is to screech happily in her crib. Anna hasn't seemed to enjoy that too much ...

Another favorite of Kate recently is solid food. After several weeks of just being "okay" with cereals, eating from a spoon finally clicked for her last week. Now she eats cereals, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, green beans, peas, apples, and bananas. I think the pumpkin and fruit are her favorites right now.




Anna still loves being outside whenever she can. On Sunday afternoon we decided to burn our brush pile so Anna could watch/participate. Amazingly we didn't need hat or coats for the experience. Fun times.





Anna also loves her books and her sister, often together. One of our morning rituals is picking out clothes/getting Anna dressed after breakfast. Kate often comes along into Anna's room and plays with some of her toys. Lately, Kate hangs out in Anna's room for a bit while I finish getting ready myself. This morning I "caught" Anna reading some books to Kate.


One of my favorites right now is that Anna is officially wearing underwear (except for naps and nighttime). Hooray! She's usually really good about using the potty, too, even in public now ... as long as we bring along our own potty seat. However, the process still takes a long time ... she just likes to make the most of it ;)



Matt's favorite right now is that we realized he still had a handful of vacation days left this year so he's taking a few Fridays off from now until the end of the year. This past Friday he used the time to go out and cut firewood. Fun times for him :)

A good day ...

You may be wondering what makes a good day in the Mischnick home. Well, here's how it went:

Matt stayed home long enough in the morning to have breakfast with us.

Anna, Kate, and I left the house on time.

Anna and I managed to make it to the post office and the grocery store before music class.

Anna had two, that's right ... TWO, successful potty experiences at music class.

Kate took a good nap and bottle at the neighbor's while we were away.

Anna pooped on the potty at home.

Both girls were napping at the same time this afternoon so I had time to clean up the kitchen, mop the kitchen floor, clean the bathroom, send a few emails, pay a few bills, and a couple other random things.

Kate and I delivered a meal to some church members before Kate's 6-month check-up.

The 6-month check-up went well (16 lbs. 5 oz. - 57%; 26.5" - 77%; 44.5 cm - 94%) and the shot trauma didn't last too long, although the waiting for the appointment was long.

And then, Matt and Anna had home-made pizza waiting for us when we got home.

All in all, a good day.

Ready to leave the house?

Potty training a sensitive perfectionist who loves her routines turned out to be a bit more emotional than I thought.

Everything started out so well! By Tuesday night, Matt and I were wondering if potty training could really be this easy ... then Wednesday came. Without going into all the details, it turns out that Anna has some major anxiety about public bathrooms, which I probably should have guessed. Anyway, leaving the house Wednesday for errands and music class caused some pretty big setbacks in the whole process, but we worked through things slowly but surely, and finally seem to be back on track. We're going to try doing our normal activities this week, but will definitely bring along our own potty seat ;)

Although it's very exciting for Anna to be using the toilet instead of diapers for many reasons, there are a few down sides to having a potty trained toddler. First, I feel like I need to clean the bathroom a lot more frequently ... who said girls don't need to aim? Anna is still working on "sooting (scooting) back" on the seat. Also, the phrase "I need to go to the potty" usually means that we need to drop everything and have a 10-15 break to go through the whole process. And finally, we no longer have the luxury of letting Anna hang out in her crib for awhile right after she wakes up. She's always been slow at waking up so even after we'd hear her wake up, she'd usually be quiet for another 15 minutes or so ... no more of that ;)


Kate is usually up before Anna anyway in the morning and is often a good motivator for getting Anna moving after she wakes up. Anna likes to have Kate come into her crib to say hi and Kate likes to grab whatever she can ... blankets, hair, face, etc. Both girls end up laughing pretty heartily ... a good way for everyone to start the day.

Speaking of Kate, last week she mastered sitting up without support. We still put pillows behind her and probably will for awhile, but she LOVES sitting and playing with toys now. One of her favorite activities is to sit next to a bin of toys, pull one out, taste it, shake it, toss it aside, and repeat the whole thing with another toy. Endless fun!




Kate has also developed this really goofy smile. She scrunches up her eyes, wrinkles her nose, and breathes in and out of her nose really fast. Being toothless just makes the whole thing more fun :)




Sunday the Packers played the late game (meaning after Anna's nap) so we camped out in front of the TV to watch. Anna really enjoys this experience and can't seem to get enough of watching the players "tumble". She also likes to play with Matt's old stuffed football when we're watching the game. She now recognizes and points out Packers paraphenalia wherever we go and knows who Aaron Rodgers and Donald Driver are :)

Stuck at home ...

We're stuck here at home these days, for good and bad reasons. Last Thursday afternoon Anna started coming down with a cold. Kate started with the same symptoms on Saturday ... of course. Thankfully, it has only be low-grade fevers, runny noses, and stuffiness; there's some pretty nasty stuff going around here in Madison these days. Last week we learned of several kids at our church who were diagnosed with H1N1, along with our music teacher who had to cancel classes due to her case of H1N1. We also learned of some kids at church who had bad ear infections in addition to a few other families who had the stomach flu go through their homes. So ... I was a bit nervous when Anna first had her fever, but, like I said, it doesn't seem to be that serious. Still, with all the stuff going around and with lowered immune systems anyway because of this cold, we've been here at home since Thursday (except for a short trip to the store on Saturday a.m. - more on that later).

It's a good thing that the weather has been surprisingly warm so that we can spend some of our home time outside instead of just being cooped up indoors. It's also been nice that Anna has been learning how to play games so that we have more to occupy our time when we are inside. Last week we taught her to play Uno, albeit without any wild cards in the deck and having us lay out all our cards. Still, she thinks it's great.

The good thing about being home is that we are in the midst of potty training "boot camp", as our friends like to call it. Anna was pretty interested in the potty back in June, but I wasn't willing to go all out at that point. Then we had a long lull in her potty interest. This past week she asked to sit on the potty a few times and when she woke up Saturday morning asking to sit I knew it was time, especially since I knew we'd be quarantined for a few days and the weather was supposed to be nicer so we could spend time outside.

So we headed out to the store, picked up some underware, and got ready for the accidents. Saturday we had three successes and three accidents. Sunday there were NO accidents, but lots of false alarms. Today we've done great so far, even starting out the day with poop in the potty! I love the fact that frozen blueberries are enough of a reward for peeing for Anna ... for the poop we told her that I'd teach her how to play Candyland. As soon as she pooped this morning she asked to play; we've spent a lot of this morning working on the rules of that game ;)

Anyway, we'll probably be stuck here for another few days until the nose gunk isn't quite so gross and I feel more confident in Anna's abilities. Wish us luck!

Halloween festivities

Anna didn't know much about Halloween until last Thursday or Friday. We didn't really see the point of telling her too much too far in advance since her concept of time is still pretty much limited to "today" and "tomorrow" :) I was trying to think of a way to explain things to her and finally just said it's a day when people dress up and go to their neighbor's houses to say "Happy Halloween". She then figured out the whole candy thing pretty quickly on Saturday evening :)


Anyway, we did our pumpkin carving on Friday evening. Anna thought it was great, especially since she usually asks me if she can help dig the seeds out when we cook up some pumpkins or some squash. Matt pulled out the jigsaw again for the actual carving ... much easier than a knife ...


Anna got to dress up as a lady bug this year. She thought it was great, especially when our neighbor, Karen, brought over a little ladybug purse for Anna to carry around. We went around to a few houses with neighbor's Carly, Blake, and parents and then headed over to Blake's house for some cupcakes.





Kate stayed home with Matt to hand out treats while Anna and I made our way down the street, but they joined us for the cupcakes. Kate was a pretty good kate-o-lantern.






Anna was pretty tired when we finally got back to our house on Saturday evening, even though we weren't out for very long. Overall, it was a fun experience.


Sunday afternoon turned out pretty well after a rough night with Kate on Saturday and a no-nap day for Anna on Sunday (not by our choice!). We set up in the basement to watch the Packers-Vikings game and Anna even got to have dinner down there (which we NEVER do ... too much of a mess normally). Anna loved looking for the "G's" on the field, watching the players get tackled, and telling me that the Packers were "taking a break" whenever there was a commercial :) Silly girl!

A week with fun memories

This was was a little different than normal for us, but definitely full of some fun memories.

First, our play group met at the zoo on Tuesday instead of at church; it was a relatively nice day and since we're not sure how many more of these we're going to get, we decided to take advantage of it. Kate was a pretty good sport about the whole deal, even when she got to eat in the primate house ... I wonder if the lemurs and chimpanzees have ever gotten to see a baby nurse before ... hmmm ... Anyway, Anna was such a trooper, opting to chase after Eli and Thomas (both 3 and very active) instead of riding or standing on the stroller. Boy, was she TIRED that afternoon and evening!

Then on Wednesday Matt surprised us by taking a day off of work to hang out with his girls. Anna and I still went to music class, but then we all played outside quite a bit in the afternoon. Anna ran around the yard while Matt used the leaf vacuum to collect some leaves for next year's garden. Again, Anna was wiped out by the end of the day.


Thursday I took the girls over to Milwaukee to spend the day with Gretchen and Josh. Josh and Anna are certainly in need of a bit more adult supervision/intervention than they needed previously, mostly because Josh likes to be a bit more physical than Anna would prefer. We heard a lot of "No, no, Josh, don't do that!" before Anna would start crying. Gretchen said that she's already working with Josh on the concept of "no means no" while I was trying to teach Anna to say "no", then walk away or say "let's do something else". Both kids were pretty receptive to the learning :)


Josh was pretty taken with Kate. He loved making her smile and laugh and, of course, she loved it, too. Anna didn't seem to mind too much that Josh was more interested in Kate than her at times ... hopefully Anna will always be so gracious about having a boy's attention diverted to her sister :)

This past week was also the first time Kate took a bath in the big bathtub with Anna. Both girls LOVED the experience, even with Anna's big splashes. I think Anna is going to love teaching Kate all kinds of bathtime games, and as you can see below, Kate idolizes her sister even now :)

Growing, growing, growing ...

I've decided that Anna must be going through some kind of growth spurt here recently. She's been sleeping in almost every morning for a week now, in addition to taking good naps, and has seemed to be extra hungry, too. She's also been a bit crabby in the mornings, even though she's been sleeping a lot. At first I thought it might be a cold, but there were absolutely no cold-like symptoms. I finally put things together when she pulled out a t-shirt and pants to wear today that she wore all summer; the pants were a full inch too short and the shirt was quite a bit snugger than just a month ago.



Kate is, of course, growing like a weed, too, but that's more typical for her. She's well into 6 month clothes and some of those are even getting a bit snug. It's hard for me to remember sometimes that she's only 5 months old! But she found her feet a few weeks back and that's fun for everyone!




Last week was a pretty low key kind of week, with just our normal stuff. I don't remember too many of the details, though, because Kate gave us a few rough nights. We have no idea why, but every few nights she wakes up at about 3 or 4 and just wants to be up to play for a bit. Oh, well. I'm sure it will all work out someday ... Matt and I joke that Anna's "witching hour" is around 7 p.m. when we're getting her ready for bed whereas it looks like Kate's "witching hour" is around 3 a.m. Hmmm.



We've still been trying to be outside as much as we can before things get too cold. We were blessed last week with a couple of sunny days in which to just goof off around the yard. Anna got a kick out of running laps around the front yard and giving neighbor John some really silly smiles each time she passed him.



One noteable event, at least for Anna, from last week was Bible Study on Thursday. She's certainly come a long way in terms of being comfortable in the nursery with whoever is scheduled for that day. Last year she'd cry almost every time anyone left the room; this year she just wants me to make sure she is set up first. Except for last week ..

It turns out that the yearly check for the church's fire alarms was scheduled for Thursday. I had no idea until they went off the first time. I went into the nursery to check on Anna since I know she's pretty sensitive to loud sounds and sure enough, she had her hands over her ears and was crying. I got her settled back in to read some books with "Grandma Carol", but when I took Kate in (she was getting louder than the discussion) about 15 minutes later, Anna was still sitting on Carol's lap with her ears covered.

So ... Anna spent the rest of the Bible Study on my lap with the rest of the ladies saying "I want to go home." Unfortunately, the alarm went off one more time before the guys finally left. This whole event was a major topic of conversation for Anna for the next few days ... we finally had Anna help us test the smoke detectors in our house on Saturday morning to try and help her get over the whole thing (thanks for the suggestion, Mom!). I'm sure we'll still talk about the fire alarms and how they "make our ears hurt" the next several times we go to church, but at least it's not as scary anymore.

We had a few extra minutes before we left for church on Sunday, so I was trying to get a picture of both girls together ... not very successfully. Kate was actually more cooperative than Anna about the whole thing :)

"Are you happy?"

We're talking a lot lately with Anna about feelings. She seems to be trying to figure out emotions beyond happy and sad, so we're checking out all kind of books from the library and I'm working with Matt on how we can model "I'm feeling ______", not necessarily the easiest thing to do :)

Anna has always been very sensitive to others' feelings and will often get upset herself if anyone around her, most notably me, is upset. She'll keep asking "Are you happy, Mommy?" until I say yes. If I respond with something other than yes ("I'm tired" or "I'm working on it" or simply "no"), then she'll sometimes bring me her blanket to try and get me to feel better. Of course now the "Are you happy?" question has turned into a bit of a game, too. Sometimes if she's asking just to be silly, I'll ask right back "Are YOU happy?" and we'll go back and forth until one of us get sick of the question :) As I write Anna is running laps upstairs and every time she passes Matt she's asking, or rather shouting, "Are you happy, Daddy?!?!"

Besides that, here are some photos of Kate and her buddy Noah. Kate spends some time on Wednesday mornings at Noah's house while Anna and I go to music class and Noah comes to our house on Friday afternoons so his mom can get some time "off".



This past Friday I put Kate in her doorway jumper and Noah in the exersaucer so they could see one another. Both kids couldn't take their eyes off each other! Kate was so funny because her body would start turning, but she'd keep her head pointed towards Noah until the last possible moment :) By the way, she loves her jumper, and Anna loves to run past Kate and yell something at her while she's running laps around the house.


On a different note, Matt and I are both a bit bummed these days that we can't really go outside to play after dinner anymore ... too dark and too cold. So we're working on adjusting to the fall/winter evening routines, which often include lots of books.

After having several days (weeks?) of cold and wet weather, we had a beautiful autumn day today. This morning we had friends (Eli and dad David) over to make applesauce, but as soon as they left and I got things somewhat cleaned up, I was outside with whoever was awake. The girls are on opposite napping schedules right now, so Kate and I hung out together outside while Anna was sleeping and then Anna and I spent all afternoon together while Kate was napping. So much fun!

Fall!

On the radio this morning the broadcasts mentioned that last year on this day the high was 83 degrees; today's high is 43. I think we went straight from summer to what feels like winter ... crazy weather! This past weekend I had to dig out all of our winter coats, hats, and gloves just so we could go to the pumpkin patch. It's a good thing that I picked up some winter boots for Anna a few weeks back!

Last week we had some random fun, along with some challenging days. First the fun!


Since last week was fire awareness week, our local fire department had an open house at the fire station. We thought it would be fun to go, but opted out of the pig roast part of the evening. Kate seemed to enjoy all of the action and Anna had a great time.



I think Anna's favorite parts were seeing Sparky (the fire safety dog character, in case you didn't know), watching the bigger kids get to spray a fire hose at cardboard fire cutouts, and getting to pull the cord that made the bell ring on the fire engine. Then the fire hat was a huge hit for a few days, too :)



Another fun part of last week was that Kate got her first experience with food other than milk. She got to taste some cereal in the middle of the week and did surprisingly well with it. She's sort of figured out that she should open her mouth for the spoon, but isn't very regular with that skill yet. And she's definitely still working on getting the food to the back of her mouth to swallow.


Kate also got to try sweet potatoes on Saturday, but I think we're going to hold off on those for a little bit, or at least not give her quite so much next time. Kate woke up at 4 a.m. on Sunday just to poop and get a fresh diaper; then she didn't want to go back to sleep. After we finally got up for the day, she pooped another three times by noon. Who knew sweet potatoes could do that?


One more fun part of the week was our trip to the pumpkin patch. It seemed a little silly to go somewhere to buy pumpkins when we have three beautiful ones from our own garden, but there's just something special about the wagon ride and a big pumpkin field. Anna told us she wanted a "yittle" pumpkin and she took FOREVER to pick hers out :)


And finally, some of the challenges. Wednesday was a rough day for Anna, probably because she had a cold coming on, but of course I didn't know that at the time. A few too many meltdowns for Mommy's idea of fun. As for Kate, I think we're finally coming to terms with the fact that this child is just going to be consistently inconsistent. One night she'll sleep through and the very next night she'll wake up several times. We're pretty sure that she'll go back to sleep on her own now, provided that she's not hungry and doesn't have a poopy diaper, but of course that will probably change, too. The only thing that seems to be predicable about Kate is that she smiles and laughts at almost anything. Silly kid!

South Dakota and Baby Ruth

Whew! We got back this morning from our trip out to South Dakota to visit Michal, Sam, the boys, and Baby Ruth. Almost a thousand miles in the van, two hotels, lots of rest areas, many renditions of "The Wheels on the Bus" and "If You're Happy and You Know It", but all worth it to see the Needhams and to be a part of Ruth's baptism.


Overall, the traveling went a lot better than we thought it might go. We borrowed a portable DVD player from a neighbor and that helped for Anna. Then Matt and I took turns sitting in the backseat to keep Kate company sometimes. The hotel experiences were interesting, especially since Anna still feels the need to talk to herself most nights before she goes to sleep. Coupling that with Kate getting up for good by 6 a.m. and no one got much sleep either night, but I'm sure we'll recover soon.

We had a great time seeing Michal, Sam, the boys and little Ruth. Jonah and Seth are growing up so fast and baby Ruth is such a sweetheart. Anna loved playing with all of the boys' toys and also enjoyed saying hi to baby Ruth.

Kate did surprisingly well for all of the craziness going on around her; she even joined in for some of the gun fights.

Unfortunately, however, Anna decided to show a bit of her spunky side during Ruth's baptism and also during the rest of the church service. She's normally so well behaved, especially during church, but things were just so far out of her normal routine that she kind of got that "evil" look in her eye on Sunday morning. The lack of sleep for her probably didn't help anything either :)

On a side note, Kate's sleep training was going pretty well last week, but we thought it would be better for everyone to replug her at the hotel. So tonight we start again ...