March

Time is flying by and we're shocked to see April on the calendar tomorrow.  Here is a photo tour through our March minus work pictures for Fran and Matt. Those just aren't too exciting...

Erin is destined to be a hall monitor. She is a stickler for others following rules and loves to report when Nora isn't doing what she thinks that she should. She is also expanding her ever impressive vocabulary. This week she used and defined monochromatic correctly. She also told me that digit and numeral are other words for number. Today she asked me if I had heard her scamper across the kitchen. Last weekend she looked out the window and told me it was a very blustery day. She seems to absorb everything that she hears (the good and bad) and try it all out. It's tons of fun to listen to, but I worry about when her vocab is going to outstrip mine.

She's also starting to recognize some sight words and likes to pick them out as we're reading. She's gotten into chapter books. So far her favorites have been Pippi Longstocking (needed quite a bit of editing), Betsy and Tacy (a real winner except when the baby sister dies), Henry and Ribsy, and Little House in the Big Woods. So far she has about 15 words that she can recognize, but gets cranky when I encourage her too much on the reading... I'm trying to be patient, but I can't wait until she can read!

Erin is also working on learning Spanish. She's in a class once a week now, but going to be doing a Spanish camp this summer and will be in immersion preschool next fall. She's having fun with it so far and I'm learning a bit with her. Nora is also getting her dose of Spanish with our babysitter who loves to read, sing and talk only in Spanish to her. Good stuff. 

Erin's still enjoying preschool. She goes in the morning 4 days a week: 2 with the younger kids class (3 year olds) and 2 with the older kids (4-5 year olds). She loves her teacher who teaches both sections. In fact not that long ago she told me, "You and dad are ok, but I REALLY like Miss Kelly." I guess that's a ringing endorsement coming from a 3 year old. Her birthday is coming up in just over a month and I can't wait to see what 4 years holds in store for us.

Nora is quite a character. She's 10 and a half months old now. She's a total ham for us, but has gotten quite a dose of stranger anxiety these last few months. She's especially leery of men, but is taking a while to warm up to most people. She loves to make funny faces (see above) and enjoys stopping nursing to look up and give me huge toothy grins. She's given up on most baby food, but loves whatever we're eating. Beans and rice seems to be a favorite. She is too squirmy to sit in her highchair most of the time (she tries to throw herself over the side or stand up and climb off the back) so she sits with us. She invites herself to the food on our plates and yells if we eat without feeding her. She's learned the sign for more and she uses it on occasion, but finds yelling equally effective in getting her point across.

Nora's still a very happy baby most of the time and is FINALLY sleeping through the night on a regular basis. I'm sure that plenty of the delay in her sleeping well was because of our constant travels during her first 6 months and my lack of consistency, but I'm absolutely thrilled to have her sleeping like this. She goes to sleep about 7pm and is up at about 6:45. She takes 2 good naps (1-2 hours in the am and 1 in the pm) and puts herself to sleep. She got a clean bill of heath at her 9 month checkup (95% length, 85% weight). She's got teeth and she knows how to use them: she's currently got 2 up top and 2 on the bottom and is turning into quite the vampire She loves to snuggle into your neck and then give you a nice love bite.

She also loves to nip noses...

Erin and Nora are spending more time playing together, or at least in parallel. They are both always excited to see one another. Erin insists on being the one to go into Nora first after naps and in the morning. She also brings her toys and likes wrestling with her on the floor. We do have our fair share of fights over toys and some not so gentle touches, but overall Erin does great.

Erin is still into dancing. She got into watching "the dance of the real ballerinas" AKA the Nutcracker on you tube over Christmas and just keeps putting on dance recitals for us. We're looking for a dance class for her, but most of them require kids to be 4 to start... so close.

Around the house Erin frequently flutters from one activity to the next without settling into anything for long. Every once in a while, though, I manage to come up with something that keeps her attention. We spent a great morning making a whole family of birds and their environment (complete with nest, trees, eggs, and tasty bugs). This is the mama bird.

Erin is really into birds, or at least playing birds. While other kids build forts or houses, Erin builds nests. Sometimes they are bear nests or fox nests, but usually they are bird nests. She's usually the mama Chickadee or Robin, but she likes to play Owl or Woodpecker on occasion. The other characters (adults who are roped in) typically get to be foxes, baby birds or skunks. Nora is almost the baby skunk. Don't worry, Erin tells us that her sprayer is turned off.

Nora is our reluctant walker. She's been almost walking for 6 weeks now, but has only taken a few steps here or there. She is a very speedy crawler, so maybe it feels like a step backwards for her. She stands on her own sometimes, but I've let go of her too many times while holding her hand, so now she just refuses to hold my hand and try to walk. Oh well. I know that she'll get there. Other than the walking, she continues to be very active. She loves to crawl around, pull up on everything, walk the highchair around the kitchen and climb stairs. She's great at going up the stairs, but not to savvy about going down.

We've had a few days of nice weather this spring, but mostly lots of rain. Temps are still 40s, but we've been trying to get out of the house between rain showers. Nora enjoyed her first ride in the baby backpack with Matt.

I've been trying to take more pictures lately and mostly it's going well. Both kids, however, can be a bit of a challenge to photograph.  While you may think that this is a pre-meltdown face, or a "I just stubbed my toe" face, this is actually her "mommy's taking a photo" face. Nora, on the other hand, rushes the camera whenever she sees it. Thus we have a lot of less than stellar pics taking up room on the computer.

I walked into the kitchen the other day and saw the girls licking each other's faces. Ewww.. I'm just going to pretend that this picture is a nice dry smooch and not more of the licking...

More camera rushing and parallel play. 

This month was also notable for a wonderful visit from Gramma Beth and also from Laura and Tommy. Erin and Nora (and Matt and I) love the extra adults in the house and the opportunity to go on fun outings and read the books that Mama has given up reading. Good times!

Hoping that April brings some dry, warm days!