Sesame Street Live

I scored some tickets to Sesame Street Live a few weeks ago so the kiddos and I met F'uncle (fake uncle)  Kai there since it was during a school day and Dave couldn't come with us. This year they added something new this year, a Playzone where the kids could play in Elmo's World.... "lalala, elmo's world."

 And every 15 minutes characters came out and sang songs with the kiddos, this is Murray performing "happy and you know it."

Checking out Big Birds nest.

Dancing in Zoe's dance studio.

Chillin' on 123 Sesame Street.

 Noah trying to eat the cookies.

 Abby with Abby CadAbby.

The show was great too, no pictures of it. The playzone was diffentely the highlight of the whole experience.

Numbers!

We've been working a lot with Abby on letters.  She likes to draw them and she has now started pointing them out wherever we go (billboards, street signs, etc).  She is particularly fond of the letter A and finding it wherever possible.

We haven't really done much with numbers though.  She can count to 16 or so (after 16, she says a few random numbers then ends up at 20).  She's pretty good counting numbers of things as well.

Tonight, we were all sitting around playing, and Abby was drawing on her magna-doodle.  She turned it towards us and said "what number is this?"  She turned it around, and this is what we saw:

Yeah, she drew that all by herself.  She then decided to erase it, and draw another number.  She drew an 8 and asked what number that was.  We then asked her to draw a 1 and 3, both which she did almost perfectly.  She's so darn smart!

Quotables

Two different quotables in a one hour period:

Abby: "Mommy, are you old?"
Peggy: "No, I'm only 29."
Abby: "You are old!"


Abby was drawing on her magna-doodle.  She decided she wanted to draw me.
Abby: "Do you have a little head or a big head?"
Dave: "I have a little head"
Abby: "Hmm, it looks like you have a big head!  I gonna draw a big head."
Dave: "Haha, thanks kid."

Busted! (Again....and again)

The other day, I was getting the kids ready to go outside.  I put Noah's coat on, then let him roam.  Then I was working on Abby.  I finished with Abby, and went to find Noah.  In just a minute or two, he had gotten in to the laundry room, stood up to the dog food container, unscrewed the lid (Abby feeds Proton now, so I don't think it was on too tight), grabbed the cup and was starting to scoop out dog food.

Seriously, this kid gets in to everything.  The other day, Peggy was upstairs in our bedroom with the kids.  Noah found his way in to the bathroom, stood up, and flushed the toilet.  And now he wants to do it all the time. 

Noah Climbing Steps

Noah is quite the adventurer lately.  He's all over the house, and in to everything.  We never had this much trouble keeping Abby out of stuff, although I think Noah's behavior is more typical for this age than Abby ever was.  We would tell her "no" once or twice, and she would stop.  Noah.....not so much.

Last weekend, I was working on the cleaning the house and the kids were playing.  I walked by the front door and discovered Noah had climbed up two steps all by himself.  He laughed and giggled and was very proud of himself.  I was terrified.

So, what did I do?  Try to recreate it for the camera of course!  I got this picture of him halfway to his goal.

And I got this video of him climbing the first step.

Abby Doing the Perplexus

Last year, I got a Perplexus maze game.  Abby played with it on and off, but it was pretty tough for her.  They now came out with a Perplexus game for younger kids.  Knowing how much Abby liked the original, my mom get her this new one for Christmas.

She LOVES it.  She plays with it on average an hour or so a day.  She doesn't devote that much time to any other toy.  We've been trying to be very encouraging with her so she sticks with it.

I honestly have no idea how she is so good at it.  It's surprising for her age I think.  On the old one, she was able to get to the 8th position or something.  Her current record on this one is 27 (the course is marked with numbers....the end is 70).  The other day she ended up somewhere around 45.  She either got lucky and got past the really hard part around number 30 (even Peggy hasn't beaten this part yet!), or the ball jumped the track and she skipped it.  It does jump the track occasionally (falls off and just happens to land farther along in the track) so she's actually gotten to the finish at least 10 times.  It so funny, because she looks up at us, startled and so proud of herself for getting (although illegitimately) to the end.

Giving Things

Noah has really been in to giving us things (like toys) lately.  He's constantly bringing me stuff and dropping it off in my lap.

Today I was sitting down next to the fridge with him, playing with his refrigerator magnets.

He tried to give me one of the magnets, but I had my arms crossed.  He proceeded to grab one of my hands to pry it away from my chest.  He then opened my hand and put the magnet in it.

One dedicated little man!

You Can't Fill This Kid Up!

Noah seems to never stop eating.  It's crazy.  Yesterday, he was eating lunch for at least thirty minutes.  There was probably only a couple minutes in that time that he wasn't chewing on something.  Shortly after that he took a full 6 ounce bottle.  Yeah, seriously.  He always wants to eat.  

This is his "I want more food, and if you don't give it to me I'm gonna scream" face:

 He does know how to do the sign for "more" but it's not quite the "official" version.  Basically, he slams his hands together (kinda like clapping), and makes this weird grunting sort of sound.  This is what he was doing in the above picture.

Noah has also discovered his tongue in the last couple of days.  He's constantly sticking it out, moving it, pulling on it, etc.

Teething or Ear Infection?

We took Noah to the doctor two nights ago for two reasons.  First, we thought he had another ear infection.  It's so hard to tell when he does/doesn't have one.  He has just been cranky for the last week.  He gets a bit of a runny nose as well and is very clingy to Peggy.  That's pretty much the only evidence we've had of his ear infections.


The second reason was that we're considering changing pediatricians.  We haven't been too happy with our current one lately.  He just doesn't give us the time and patience he used to.  We used to LOOOOVE him.  I'm not sure if he's got too many patients or what, but I think it's time to move on.  A lady I work with thinks the same thing about him lately.  Plus, the new pediatrician is right here and fenton and has evening and weekend hours.  Sweet!

Anyways, he didn't have an ear infection.  BUT, he is getting two new teeth.  This makes a total of 6, four on top and two on bottom.  We had no idea he was teething.  He hates when we try to look in his mouth.  The teeth were completely through the surface already.  I felt dumb when the doctor was showing us and we had no idea they were there.  Oops. 

The ear infection thing is so hard because the symptoms have been the same as for teething.  I guess we didn't realize how lucky we were with Abby.  Her teeth came in with almost no fussing or problem.  And she didn't have any ear infections by this age.

Adorable

Have you seen this? Yes, I'm a little impressed with myself. I totally snapped this on accident. I was trying to get a shot of them looking at the camera, but they had other plans. Noah had just woken up from his nap and they both needed a snack. They thought they were really funny not paying attention or looking at me. Of course the picture was taken in color and Dave messed with the color, I love how it turned out. It's going on a wall canvas in our bedroom. I can't wait until it gets here!

Outings

We've had some great weather lately and have been out and about a lot. For Christmas we got a membership to The Magic House. It's a great children's museum not far from our house. Abby can't wait to go back again and again.

They have such great rooms where kids can themed imaginary play, everything from a grocery store to a hospital nursery (Abby's favorite.)

One of her other favorite rooms is a craft room, this time it was set up for painting, one of her favorite things to do. Noah's favorite room by far is the water room where he can sit in a high chair and splash all over the place.

We also made a trip to the World Bird Sanctuary. It's a great free place where you can see many birds up close.  But Abby really loves to go and see the bunny, Hazel. Her other favorite part, the snake room. This last visit volunteers were helping a constrictor shed its skin in a tub of water. Pretty cool. Noah wasn't quite as impressed as Abby but getting them outside in this great weather is wonderful.

I love how close we can get to the birds, how often will the kids see owls and eagles this close.

This past weekend we made a winter trip to the zoo, as the temperature was supposed to get to 60 degrees. We went first thing in the morning so it was still pretty chilly. We had a great time, sorry for the crummy picture its blown up from my cell phone. This is Abby standing in front of Raja, he just turned 19years old and the zoo had a big party for him.

I would love to skip winter and head right to springtime.

Busted!

Once upon a time we had a calm little boy, who was just learning to crawl. These days we have a fast moving crawler and a beginning walker and a master climber. Noah has mastered his way to the top of the landing, unsupervised... so scary. And today while I was helping Abby zip up her jacket he climbed into his cop coup on his own. He was so proud of himself. This is the two of them, already running late for daycare but we had to stop and take a picture.

I emailed Dave once I got to work and told him about Noah's newest accomplishment and as soon as we were home this evening Noah did it again. He's very proud of himself. He is also taking single steps but we haven't been able to capture those steps yet. 

"I can do it"

That's one of Abby's favorite phrases these days "I can do it". She can dress herself, use the bathroom and even set the dinner table. She is becoming so independent. She's moving out of the toddler stage and into a big girl. She is becoming quite the big sister, making sure Noah leaves her toys alone and he stays out of the dog dish... often reminding him "Noah Thomas you can't do that." She is also becoming quite the singer. Some of her favorites include "Red Solo Cup" "I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" and some originals that usually start with "when my doll..." and no I don't really know what she is saying after that.