Tuesday, November 9, 2010

It's Official

Nathaniel is walking! Once he finally decided he wanted to, he just started walking all over the place. Here's the evidence from last Sunday:



Before he had quite figured it out, his favorite activity was to push the laundry basket all around the house. Who needs a walker, right? :) He also started to put things he wanted to take with him into the basket like so....
(An empty milk jug from the recycling and a bouncy ball are apparently desirable items.)

He is growing and changing so fast these days. He's in that stage where he is figuring new things out every day. He still doesn't talk very much. He says "Da!" all the time for Daddy, especially when he hears the garage door open when Daddy comes home. He says "Mama" only occasionally. He can say something like "guck" for yucky. Sometimes it seems like he's saying "ball". That's pretty much it, though. He is finally doing signs. He will point at something and then make the sign for more. Tonight he was doing that at the cookie I had. It was pretty funny. He is definitely communicating a lot more.

He has mastered a few animal sounds. His very first one was growling, which I thought was hilarious and so like him. He is such a little boy. Now he can do an elephant and a giraffe, as demonstrated on the next video. Baby Food is Nate's all-time favorite book, just like Natalie when she was little. To see Natalie's version of the animal sounds from the book see this post. It's an Atkin family classic video. :)



Nate loves to eat crayons. He really does. No matter how hard I try to get the girls to pick up their crayons, he still ends up with some. He can grab stuff off the edges of the table now, too, which makes things difficult. With other things, if I say "yucky" and ask him to give it me, he will. Not so with crayons. He throws a fit when I take them away and if I try to dig out the crayon pieces from his mouth. I don't get it.

I can't believe how big he is getting. Natalie wasn't too much older than he is now when we moved here and that seems like it was yesterday. I'm just trying to enjoy those moments when he'll snuggle with me and the tight hugs he gives me every once in awhile. I love my little boy.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Elizabeth's Directorial Debut

This video makes me happy. I let Elizabeth use the video camera and this is what resulted...


Friday, November 5, 2010

I am thankful for...

-A working garbage disposal

-A working refrigerator.

-Working central heating.

Can I say I'm thankful for these things if I don't currently possess them? I suppose I should say I value these things right now. When it rains it pours, I guess.

Luckily, we haven't needed the heat--the weather has been perfect. Also luckily, the fridge part is working. The freezer is what is not working very well, along with the ice maker. If you know me, you know that I am suffering from the lack of ice and ice cream.

OK, whining over.

The kids and I started this thanksgiving jar again this year. I love it. The other day we picked the one where we make paper turkeys. We did it a little different and used colorful leaves as the feathers. I think the kids had much more fun collecting our leaves on our walk home from school than actually making the turkeys. It was fun looking at all of the beautifully colored leaves.

Elizabeth's on the right, Natalie's on the left

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Preschool


I feel bad that I've never dedicated a post to Natalie's preschool. A few friends and I started a co-op preschool a few months ago. There are six kids and it's two hours long, twice a week. It has been wonderful for Natalie. She would be dying if she didn't have her very own school to go to. She only wishes hers were every day like Lizzie's.

I have actually really enjoyed teaching. Well...I enjoy my weeks off more, but it is very fun to plan the activities and to see the kids enjoying them. It makes me realize how many things I could have been doing with my kids before that are really simple yet educational and fun.

For one day that I taught, we were learning about eyes and the sense of sight. For our snack we made veggie faces. I thought Natalie's was really clever. She said she made a clown:

Some of the kids:
(small numbers since we were missing the three triplet girls who were sick)
I need to be better about recording some of the fun activities we do. The irony of this post is that the only reason I'm writing this right now is that we are having a sick (coughs/colds) day around here and the girls are both missing school. They are resting watching a movie. I have to admit--it feels nice not to be running around.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Surprise Visit and Halloween

Last Thursday, we got a surprise visit from Grandpa Tom and Grandma Lorna. It was so fun to see them and we were glad they made the long drive out to visit us.They got to come to Elizabeth's soccer game on Saturday and Grandpa got some good pictures.

Look at her running after that ball!
Natalie loves to play her own soccer game on the sidelines:

Playing together at halftime:
The fans
The littlest fan
Grandma was also a lifesaver when it came to Halloween. She worked hard and made Elizabeth an apron and an underskirt for her Alice in Wonderland costume and it turned out so perfect!

Here's Alice next to one cute little witch:
Alice and the rabbit with the witch:
With her broom:
Not too thrilled about the costume:

Just for fun, here's a baby bunny comparison:

Nate
Natalie
Elizabeth

We all went to a Trunk or Treat and the girls had a blast and scored quite a bit of candy. It was a good thing, too, because we didn't buy any extra candy since we didn't get any trick-or-treaters last year. We got a few this year and the girls were SO excited to hand out candy that they didn't even care about giving away their own. We'll have to take them out for some real trick-or-treating next year.