Is it spring yet?

I know it's only the middle of January, but I'm ready to be able to go outside without having to deal with hats, coats, boots, gloves, etc. I think I was only able to play with Anna outside once last week and it's just too cold to bring Kate out for anything more than getting into or out of the van. Perhaps we're experiencing a bit of cabin fever? At least we were able to get back into most of our weekly routines last week.

Last week was pretty dominated with dealing with Anna. After a variety of things she said and did last week, I know for sure now that she's experiencing feelings of displacement. She actually told me (though not in so many words) that she wants to poop in her diaper like Kate so that we'll have to change her like we change Kate. Matt and I have taken to going into her room after she's asleep at night to see if she needs a fresh diaper so she doesn't end up sleeping all night with a dirty one. The first time we changed it, things were pretty bad because she woke up fully and was not happy about the situation. Then last night she didn't really wake up for the change, but this morning told me "the poop went away!" when she remembered she'd pooped but realized her diaper wasn't dirty. Hmm ... too many levels of parenting to deal with on a Monday morning.

So ... we're trying to tackle some of the deeper issues first before pushing too hard with the poop thing. We're really talking up being a "big sister" again and pointing out all of the great things she can do that Kate can't do. We're also emphasizing the fun that we have both when it's just Anna and one of us, but also when Kate is involved, too. Plus, Matt and Anna will now be having a weekly daddy-daughter date. Tonight they're going to go to the library together, just the two of them. Anna's pretty excited.


Besides the pooping thing, Anna's doing great. She loved music class and play group last week and seems to like puzzles and playing Uno the best at home right now. She also has been putting together pretty elaborate thoughts to share with us. When we were running errands last week she told me out of the blue "One time we went to the zoo and there was a carousel and you put me on an animal and it went up and down when we went around and around and there was a mirror and we could see ourselves in it." Who knows what reminded her of that one, but it was certainly all true.


In addition to trying to give Anna all kinds of conscious attention, I'm also having to keep more and more of an eye on Kate, who has figured out how to move more quickly now. She still doesn't realize that she can move from room to room on her own, but I can't really leave her alone for more than a few seconds. She already knows which items aren't usually on the floor and will almost always make a bee line for something that really shouldn't be lying around within her reach. In fact, one morning last week I saw her gumming something, did a finger sweep of her mouth, and pulled out a lady bug. Yuck! I didn't realize any of those had survived the cold weather.

So here starts another week. It's supposed to be close to 30 degrees a few days this week (instead of 10!) so maybe we'll be able to get outside to play a bit. I hope so!

A New Year

2010 is off to an interesting start ...

For New Year's Eve we had our neighbors over to have homemade pizza and play before both Anna and Carly started to melt down. Needless to say, neither 2 year old made it until midnight. Kate, however, must have intuitively known something was happening since she woke up at about 12:05 a.m. to ring in the new year :)


Before Carly and family came over, Matt's Aunt Kathy and Uncle Martin stopped by for a few hours to visit. We hadn't seen them since last year at Thanksgiving so it was nice to spend some time with them. It took both Anna and Kate a little while to get warmed up to Kathy and Martin, but once they did they had a blast reading books, showing off toys, crawling around, etc.


Both girls have made the year fairly interesting so far. Kate has somehow figured out in the past two weeks how to army crawl, hands-and-knees crawl, and pull herself up. Hmmm ... Mommy is having mixed feelings about all this. We're certainly excited about each new milestone that Kate acheives, but I don't know that I'm ready for all that comes with a mobile infant. Thankfully, Kate isn't very fast at any of the above (yet) unless she's REALLY motivated ...

Anna is making the new year interesting, too. We think that she is (finally?) experiencing some jealousy towards her sister which seems to be manifesting itself in rather uncomfortable ways ... for all of us. Looking back, it makes sense that Anna would be starting to feel more jealous of the attention Kate is receiving since she had to share the spotlight at the Colba Christmas with Kate and since Kate is getting all sorts of attention for her milestones. Of course we're trying to balance out the praise and attention, but you can almost sense Anna's thoughts and feelings when Kate gets praised for doing something new. At least she's not taking these feelings out on Kate.

Unfortunately, we think these emotions are surfacing via potty regression. When Anna is awake and wearing underwear, she very, very rarely has accidents. However, she has taken to pooping in her diaper or pull-up while she's still lying in bed. Normally this wouldn't be too big of a deal and we could figure it out eventually, but in the past week she's pooped at night before she's fallen asleep and hasn't told us about it. Uh oh. Big uh oh. Sleeping in a poopy diaper all night makes a little girl's bottom VERY sore, especially when it happens several nights in a week. So we're working on it. Through suggestions from friends at church we're loading her up with fiber early in the day so she literally can't hold it until bedtime. Good thing Anna will eat grapes, plums, oranges, etc. like there is no tomorrow :) The strategy worked today, but we'll see what tomorrow brings.

On a lighter note, Anna became very quiet on Sunday morning while Matt and I were finishing getting ready for church. It turns out she had pulled out the stickers from her "church bag" and was not only decorating her clothes, but also Shadow. We certainly chose to keep the right cat; Pounce would never have tolerated this!


And now we're back to reality. No more holidays, no more Matt taking Fridays off, no more crazy schedules ... for better or for worse.

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.