Trying to keep up

I have not had much energy for blogging lately.  I have been pretty busy at work, and after the kids go to bed I've just been tired.  And my weekends have been tiring too.  I've been spending a lot of my "free time" on weekends (i.e. while the kids nap) making applesauce and apple pies and other goodies using up our garden harvest.  So that has left much less time for me to keep up with the blog.

So, here is just a short and quick list of updates that have been going on with the kids.

1) Emma dances!  And it's the cutest dance I think I've ever seen a little nearly toddler do!  Evan danced really cute too, but most of his early dancing was the bouncing "squat" kind, which I honestly thought that's how most all young kids danced.  However, Emma has got the hip shakes and the wiggles down!  She's much more the side-to-side swaying kind of wiggly dancer so far.  I can't get enough of it!

Click here for a video of "Emma's wiggles"

2) Evan "reads" books!   He's started doing this quite often, either with one of his or Emma's books, or with one of John's magazines.  He'll flip through it and make up stories and/or things to say as he flips through the pages.  Some parts of his "stories" are indiscernible (perhaps just gibberish), and other parts are something about what he sees in the pictures.  I just love seeing him use his imagination.

3) Emma's communicating with us!  She signs "more" and "eat" very well (and often), she high fives and blows kisses, and waves at people that are waving at her (for hello or goodbyes).  She also signs "hat".  I want to start teaching her more signs because she still doesn't verbally say any words really (thought she babbles a bunch).  Just the other day she said "ga ga" and I heard her and got excited for her and repeated it back.  She thought that was so funny, so she laughed and said it again.  We went back and forth doing this a few times.

4) Evan can say the funniest things.  Here is a recent selection that I can recall:


One morning this past week while I was getting ready for work and John was still in bed I overheard the following conversation--
Evan: "Come on Daddy, let's go get brekky"
John: "Can I sleep for a few more minutes?"
Evan: "Uh…....no way."
--
"Don't say that Mommy.  Don't say 'just a second'."

--

We attended a birthday party today for a friend's little girl.  Evan did great singing the birthday song to her with everyone else.  Then right after the birthday girl blew out her candles, Evan loudly proclaimed "Yay, I can have cake now!"

--
His all time favorite thing to say lately, which John and I are both tired of hearing, especially when he asks us a question and we take the time to answer him and get this in response to our answer--
"Huh?" 

5) Emma's getting more teeth!  She sprouted her top center two teeth, pretty much at the same time, about a week after her first birthday.  Then just yesterday I noticed she's getting her upper right (3rd top) tooth.  Her upper left (4th top) tooth may be starting to come in too, but hasn't quite broken the gums yet.  Either way, she now has 5 teeth, whereas just 3 weeks ago on her 1st birthday she only had her bottom two!

6) Evan is showing more concentration and less frustration!  He got a set of gears toys for his birthday and we've been playing with them a lot this past week and they are not super easy to put together, but he really focuses and tries hard and figures it out, without getting frustrated as easily.  Perhaps he is maturing and starting to show more signs that he could be ready for preschool soon?   Either way, I'm proud of him to see him concentrating like that!

7) Emma loves to eat!  And not baby food anymore, but she wants what we're eating.  So she's started to get little bitty bites of any soft foods (or soft parts of the foods) that we're eating.  Besides that, though, she loves her "Puffs" snacks.  If she sees a Puffs container she'll whine until she gets some, including today at the store when I was buying more.  We had to open one of them in the store to give her a few to help calm (and quiet) her down!  

Caught with her hand in the cookie (er, puffs) jar!

8) Evan's working on writing!  He still switches between his right and left hand, so I have no idea what hand he'll eventually write with (he's still a lefty for eating though), but he's so far learned how to write the capital letter "A" and is working on learning the capital "E" and other letters of his name.  

9) Emma likes to walk in circles!  She walks with her stroller walker round and around our house (from the kitchen, to the living room, through the dining room back into the kitchen).  She pretty much always gets stuck at the threshold from our kitchen vinyl floor to the carpet.  Evan often helps her get over it (how sweet), and the other day she was expecting me to help her (see below).  Today at the birthday party (see #4) she did laps around my friend's house too with a walker toy they had.  (Their flooring thresholds were much flatter than ours so she was unabated and I'm guessing she easily did more than 20 laps). With all this walking practice, could she get the confidence to take those first few freestyle steps soon?

Stuck at the threshold (left) and mid-lap at the party today (right)