Two Steps! +

Shhhhh, no one else knows this about tonight but, . . . ANNIE JUST TOOK TWO STEPS towards Cherry Chat Chat (who is now only called "ssssss" by Annie)! I was just about to read Annie some books before bedtime when I had put her down so she could pick them out. As I put her down, I held Cherry. Obviously, Annie wanted her back because she reached out and then I kept pulling Cherry just a tiny bit out of reach until she took two steps! No, I wouldn't call this really walking, but how much closer can we get!?! And no, I couldn't get her to do it again. : (

What follows are a few pictures of Annie with her beloved shape-sorters. Funny that Annie adores them while Leia never payed any attention to them at all! So neat to see different likes and dislikes emerging!
This yellow one is Annie's absolute favorite toy right now. It's the one she goes to very first, . . . but she always needs help with it. *sigh* Hard to do when you're trying to cook breakfast. : ) Sometimes Leia Rose helps Annie with the sorting. (She is ALWAYS holding that green circle, by the way.)
And sometimes she attempts sorting on her own. She's also saying lots of words on her own, too. Yesterday she added "Bell-buh-buh-buh" (bellybutton) and today she added "poon" (spoon) and "pop" (popcorn).
Leia Rose came home today determined to draw "Cow Jump Over the Moon." She called it that because it's the same picture a little boy draws on an episode of "Elmo's World." (I like Leia's version better.) This is the first time Leia has tried to draw a "sideways" moon. And you just got to love that cow! : )
And here is a picture of Leia Rose laughing really hard at Ernie and Bert's "lump in my oatmeal!" line. : ) Every morning when Leia wakes up for school, "lump in my oatmeal" is the first thing she says, . . . and it always puts her in a good mood. : )

Curly Top

Leia Rose has been wanting to curl her hair for some time now, so I finally told her that we could do it for today! So first we stayed up late to do the curling (but unfortunately Leia Rose has the kind of hair that doesn't accept curl too well), . . . and then we got up early to do the curling again. Leia was VERY proud of the way she looked and, if we had time, we would have painted fingernails, too. But we didn't. Thought it would be fun here to document the process. (Hey Karin, won't it be fun to do this kind of stuff with Aria?!?)

No, Leia didn't do any of it herself, but I needed somebody to hold the iron while I took a picture. Actually, I was so scared of touching Leia's head with the thing that I stayed about an inch away every time and kept putting my hands over her ears. (This is a result of me actually burning my friend Jenny Rose's forehead when I was in college and trying to curl her hair. She wasn't the only one who was scarred. Sorry Jenny.) I'm happy to say that it was a totally safe process and Leia's only comment was, "Ahhhh, this makes me feel warm!"


Doesn't Leia look like she could play Little Orphan Annie?!? (Maybe for Halloween next year! Even Leia Rose noticed the similarity!)
And here she is before school, holding Mrs. Schnell's late birthday picture. It was hard for me to let this one go with it's pretty rainbow and flowers. : ) [Mrs. Schnell would tell me later that Leia's hair was the hit of the day today at school, and that Price came over to her at least three times and said, "Hey, where'd ya' get that hair?!?"]

Just have to put in a little Annie sidenote here: Annie and I read books for an hour this morning! She is really having fun picking out the books herself, now that I have put lots of her favorites in the cabinet of the diaper changing table. (Although I'll admit that book-reading is no longer a "winding-down" activity, as a result.) Annie especially goes for the little flap book called Open the Barn Door (which she always looks at me and excitedly exclaims "Moo, Moo!") and the Sesame Street Peekaboo, I See You! where she has to lift the hand-flaps to play peekaboo with Elmo and such.

Special Daddy Game +

Both of my girls had a very special "Daddy Game" when they were about this age. With Leia Rose it was Daddy singing the jingle for goldfish ("the snack that smiles back, Goldfish"). And this is Annie's: Peek. Daddy does this game everywhere, but most notably at the table and on our bed. He will peek at Annie and then move to a different place she's not expecting. She loves it. (And when I'm around, she checks if I think it's cool, too.) : )
This is the way Annie looks when she's laughing REALLY hard. : ) We finally put up the "inside/winter" swings today. And the girls loved them. Here Leia Rose is playing "peek" with Annie as they both swing.
Later tonight, Leia Rose called me into the living room (the place where Leia goes when she still wants to be downstairs, but doesn't want Annie to mess something up) to see her new creation. Now Leia has never been a block-builder really, it has just never been her thing, but this was amazing! Leia called it her "castle," and it truly was. : )
I just wanted to document a fun new car activity courtesy of Laurie Berkner. She has a song called "I Know a Chicken" (or is it called "Shakey Egg"?) with all sorts of fun things to do with a shakey egg, and Santa brought the girls two purple shakey eggs for Christmas so, whalla! A ready-made car activity!

Leia Rose Paints Van Gogh

Here is Vincent Van Gogh's painting called "Sunflowers." Now, for weeks both teachers and parents have told me that Leia Rose spent a long time in wrapped observance of an older child (9 years old?) using this picture as a reference, and then proceeded to paint her own fabulous picture that my friend Hollis called "a framer." : )
Here it is. I am amazed not only because it's done so well, but also because it's actually a painting, not just a crayon or marker picture. : ) (Leia Rose said she didn't have room to paint her name of the vase, like Vincent, so she painted it on the table instead.)
And here is Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Starry Night."
And Leia's rendition. "But mine is above an ocean," says Leia. : )

Mrs. Schnell said that this was Leia's first attempt at painting "Sunflowers." This was done after just looking at the original painting, but before watching an older child paint.
And here is Leia's sand map of Asia.
And she's especially proud of her pretty pink South America. (Mrs. Schnell told me today that the girls in extended day have been busy planning their weddings lately. What?!? And that Leia Rose wants "to go to Hawaii on my honeymoon, but someday I'm going to Mexico." What?!?)
And here is Leia Rose's Chinese lantern. I asked her to show me which one was hers, but I really should have guessed. It was one of the few pink ones . . . with a Tyrannosaurus mouth drawn on it. : )

"Moo, Moo!" "Foo, foo!" (Shoe, Shoe!)

As good as Annie is at communication, I still can't always "get" what she's saying. : ) Late this morning, Annie kept looking at me and saying "Moo, Moo" while signing "please." Well, I kept getting out all of the cows in our possession. And at the third one, Annie got really frustrated. Then finally, I realized she was getting tired and asked, "Did you want Mamma's Milk?!?" And she made her usual "umh, umh, umh" sound while sucking her thumb, which meant "yes, I want Mamma's Milk" . . . . "and I've been trying to tell you by saying 'Moo, Moo,' but you thought I was making a cow sound, you silly Mamma!" Ha!

And we already added a new word today: "foo" (shoe). : ) Because of the spontaneity of Annie's new words, I can't tell you how rare it is to get one on video! : )

[By the way, last night was the first time since about 1/6 that Annie slept through the night without breastfeeding or screaming. Three full weeks. I hate ear infections!]

Amazing Tales from the Work Folder

This week Leia Rose has been learning about Asia in school, and here are some origami works she did this week! They are a frog, a fish, and a kitty (of course). : ) To add to the excitement about Asia, Leia is bringing in her pictures of her pen pal, Yukino (including the ones from the Japanese New Year celebration). There have been lots of questions this week about, "When are we going on that trip to Japan?" As if we were going in a few months or something. : ) I told her that both her and Annie had to be old enough to appreciate what we were going to do. I'm thinking (at the earliest) when Annie is 6 or 7, so that would make Leia Rose 10 or 11. At the EARLIEST. I did my best to convey this to Leia Rose. Not sure how much of it sunk in, though. : )
She has also been doing some more advanced math in extended day lately as evidenced by these wonderful worksheets.

BUT the most spectacular element about Leia's work folder this week was these two books that she wrote/illustrated at school! I was awed by this!

"Right now I have one frog for a pet. I had another, but I gave it away to Collin's. My frog's name is Tad. I named him that when he was a tadpole."
"When I let my frog go, I am going to get a hamster from the pet store. I am going to name my hamster 'Crawly.'"
"I think he will crawl around in his cage. I am not sure what I will feed him because I do not know what hamsters eat. The End."

Reading this book by Leia made me feel very proud of my daughter at the same time as it made me laugh. You see, Leia Rose had lately taken to stating things, instead of asking for things that she wants. Like "I am going to get a hamster." or "When I get my hamster." Ha! What an interesting tactic, . . . as if Mom and Dad don't have a say, huh? : ) And I am intrigued by the picture of the hamster cage. How did she know how to draw one? And what are those two little things on the top? I'll have to ask tomorrow.

"I want a Webkin for Christmas. The Webkin that I am going to get is going to be a bunny Webkin. It works on the computer."
I am going to name my Webkin girl-hop if she's a girl, and boy-hop if he's a boy. I'm going to make sure Annie likes it. I'm going to make it be friends with the bunnies at grandma and grandpa's house."
"I'm going to make sure my bunny is not retired because if it is retired it can't work on the computer. I'm going to love my bunny so much. Did you know my bunny is going to have her own room in Webkin's world? My bunny is going to be friends with Daphne's reindeer and pony. The End"



Funny thing about this story is that, although Leia loves her bunny Webkin (in fact she's using it as a snuggle bud tonight), Leia has NEVER asked to go into Webkins World on the computer. Brian and I decided long ago that we were going to leave computer skills as schoolwork for Leia, so we aren't bothered in the slightest. I love the picture of the bunny, and the picture of the computer at the end is really good, too! The other funny thing about this is that Leia Rose originally chose a Webkin that was retired (the purple bunny). Um, the purple bunny cost $60. No way. So I gave her this big lecture on how Santa probably couldn't get one of those. (Ha!) The white bunny only cost $9.

Sunday on Sesame Street

It's been Sesame Street fever these days as a result of me making a DVD of Classic Vintage Sesame Street Favorites for the girls. Every time I play it, the girls sit there in wrapped concentration like this, and I get teary-eyed because it connects them so very much to my own childhood. I just LOVE to watch this with them! The particular clip on the screen happens to be part of the "Put on Your Kammikluuk" song about Alaskan winter." One of my favorites. I also have to say that Leia Rose has two definite favorites. One day she chose to go around saying "I get mad, I get mad, I get mad. It ain't bad to get mad." Laughing after each time, . . . for about 100 times. The next day she chose to go around saying, "La, La, La, La, Lump in my oatmeal!" Again, laughing after each time, for about 100 times. [And as an added bonus in this picture, you get to see what our family room looks like at the end of a day when 1. Everyone had to go to Mass at separate times because Annie had a horrible night waking up again and again and 2. Mamma had to have a nap because of those wake-ups and 3. Mamma and Daddy choose to play with the girls instead of clean throughout the day. : ) ]
Later, Leia Rose gave her blow-up dinosaurs a tea party! : ) (She is feeding the T-Rex "beans," here.) And there was also more of the Bunnington Show from yesterday. : )
And here is one of Annie's favorite activities these days: pulling up her shirt, finding her tummy, and tapping it with both hands. : ) Yet another body part she has mastered. She still adores pointing out all the parts of my face, by the way. I love that. Today she added "mou" (mouse), "bow," "raff" (giraffe), and "nah" (the sound a goat makes). The word explosion continues! Interesting thing about that is how she reverts words ending in "p." So she says "puc" for "cup" and "poh" for "hop." REALLY interesting! (And cute, too.)
And here is one of Leia's most recent favorite things to do: "write things like a Mamma." : ) I'm not quite sure what that means (perhaps more/other words besides her name?), but it usually involves her drawing a box on a paper and then writing in it. Here the box was already there, so she copied the only word she saw which was the name of the company (Chicco) that made the little drawing toy, and then her name.