Some fun kiddo updates

Earlier this fall, Joshua taught Sophia how to play a version of hide and seek.  It starts with all three of us sitting on the floor of the living room.  Joshua then asks me, "can the two children go away from you, Mama?"  Which is my cue to tell him, "yes, let's see if Sophia can find you!"  He then crawls quickly away, over to the kitchen, and calls Sophia's name.  About half the time, Sophia will take her cue and start crawling over to the kitchen to look for Joshua.  Even though he's always, always in exactly the same place, she'll look under the dining table, in the bathroom, and then make her way to the kitchen.  When she comes into view, they both start squealing with glee.  Cutest hide and seek ever!!

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Joshua has started learning how to take pictures with my cell phone camera.  He'll hold the phone, compose a shot, tap the shutter button, and then immediately hit the camera roll to see the photo he took.  And then get distracted by scrolling through the other pictures and then ask if he can find Thomas (i.e., watch YouTube videos).  :)  But in that brief moment of focus, he's actually got a pretty good eye!  Here's his first photographic attempt, an image he's titled "Purple Cadillac Needs Help."



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Words that Sophia definitely knows how to say now and uses regularly in the right context:

- hi
- please ("peesss")
- thank you ("hmm-ooo" with a glottal stop in the middle)
- no
- no touch (usually said when she's trying to touch something she knows she shouldn't!)
- no hit (usually said indignantly to her big brother)
- bye-bye
- dada
- mama
- yum yum
- cheese
- bless you

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We had our first snow last week, and Joshua woke up super excited to see it falling.  He came into our bedroom and glued himself to the window to watch the snow.  Sophia was still asleep at first, so it was just the three of us and the snowfall.  Then Sophia started stirring, which drew Joshua's attention to the video monitor on my nightstand.  He immediately picked up the monitor, and following the principle of "if I can see you, you can see me," he pressed the monitor to the window, saying earnestly, "Sophia! Look at the snow!!"
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More snowy fun: when David goes out to clear the car, Joshua insists on getting his boots, coat, and mittens "just like Papa," so he can "wipe the snow" alongside him.  :)


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(This was posted verbatim on FB, but it's too good not to share here!)

Sophia: *indeterminate screaming*
Me: *holding her, rocking her, walking her around*
S: *more indeterminate screaming*
Me: Sweetheart, what do you need?
S: *deep breath* Chzzz.
Me: Cheese? OK, we can get you cheese!
S: Peessss ["please"].
Me: *handing her cheese*
S: Hmm-ooh ["thank you"] *happy and quiet snacking*

Communication, y'all. It works wonders!

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The kiddos' favorite part of Stone Hill Church?  The food!

Joshua's first school picture!

One of the preschool rites of passage that I was most looking forward to was seeing Joshua's first school pictures.  You can never tell whether it'll be hilarious or cringeworthy, but with Joshua, I knew either way, it would be super cute.  :)

On picture day, we spent the morning before school talking about photographers and cameras and how super happy fun exciting it would all be.  One of the "Thomas the Tank Engine" episodes Joshua loves to watch includes a segment with a photographer taking pictures of the trains, so he had a fun point of reference for the whole experience.  (Read: more fun than the times mama forces him to sit next to Sophia and smile and look at her annoying camera!)

When I picked him up from school that morning, I asked him about the photographer, and he was full of fun stories.  "There was a 'tographer at Joshua's school! I liked the 'tographer. I sit down in a chair! TWO kids sat on the table. One kid was sad. I was sad, Mama, I was sad. The 'tographer took my picture! And I was sad! I liked the 'tographer."

So, um, I really wasn't sure whether the photo captured him in a happy frame of mind, liking the chair, or if he would be sympathy screaming with another kid...

The photos came in a few weeks later, and oh my goodness, y'all, look at this cuteness!


When I get a chance, I really need to scan in the photo, but this cell phone shot will do for now!  I'm so very, ridiculously pleased with this first school picture.  So impressed that the photographer caught a genuine smile from our handsome little man!

Random Instagrammy goodness

Just some fun Instagram shots from this fall, to record these memories for posterity.  :)


I can't get over how cute Sophia is when she plays peekaboo!  Her chubby wee hands are juuuust barely big enough to cover her eyes!


He asked me to build a tower with his cars.  I told him it wasn't possible, and tried to steer him to other toys.  Minutes later, I see this.


Fifi's first pigtail!


"I make a big tower!  And now I make a big smile!"


A lazy Saturday morning playing in the window seat.


Joshua's first field trip -- to a farm!  With a bus, and a hayride!


Sophia loves wiping up, and will try to help clean any time you give her a napkin or cloth.


With Shaddai on Ms. Angela's birthday, at small group.


Sophia's pumpkin butt sleeping position (deeply asleep on a Monday morning, just before I have to wake her so we can pick Joshua up from school...)


Playing with friends' water bottles during Wednesday small group!

Halloween 2013

One of Joshua's favorite books this year has been "The Story of Ferdinand," so we decided together that he would be Ferdinand for Halloween this year.  And since Ferdinand loves to "sit just quietly and smell the flowers," we thought it would be appropriate for Sophia to be a little pink flower!


And Joshua is old enough this year to get into the acting part of being in a costume -- I asked him to smell the flower like Ferdinand does, and he fully complied!



We had two Halloween-related parties with Joshua's preschool class this year.  The first was a fun little gathering at Thomas' house, where the kids dressed up in their costumes and had lots of fun unstructured playtime and Halloween treats.  (For days afterward, Joshua asked if we could go back to Thomas' house so he could have lollipops!)





And then there was a costume parade and celebration at Joshua's school.  The kids went one by one across a low balance beam, stopped in the middle, and announced to the crowd of parents what they were for Halloween.  Joshua marched out happily when it was his turn, and proudly shouted out "Ferdinand!!"  I was so proud!



The kids finished up by singing some fall-themed songs and gleefully showing all of us parents their favorite hand motions.



So, so absurdly cute.  :)  And so much fun, now that Joshua is getting old enough to really enjoy holiday traditions like this!

Joshua's first day of preschool!

(This is coming three months after the fact, so I'm backdating like crazy, but I'm determined to get some posts and photos up to cover what we've been up to this fall!  So here we go...)

Joshua had his very first day of school on September 9!  Giving him a new routine mantra definitely helped, though in retrospect, I should have added "...and then just Joshua will be at Joshua's school..." in the middle of the schedule rundown.  He was very happy to go in the blue car with me, talking about how *we* were going to his school, and then he got a bit upset when I started to say goodbye to him in the classroom.  So I stayed a few minutes longer, and one of the other little boys in the classroom offered him a firetruck, and that kind gesture (plus the panoply of new and different trucks!) helped Joshua decide that this school thing might not be so bad after all.  :)



He didn't have much to say when I picked him up that first morning.  But on Wednesday, on our ride back home, he started telling me all kinds of stories about what he did, what he saw, how many trucks he played with, and how his teacher told him it was "time for the trucks to take a rest" and then they sang songs and ate a SNACK!!  This is huge for him -- up until that point, he had never really been one for relaying what he's done after the fact.  So this was the first time I got to hear directly from him what he did and what he liked -- and I confess, I teared up a bit hearing how excited he was.



We're so thankful for what he's already learned from this wonderful little school environment!  We have friends who have sent their kids to this nursery school, so we knew that the teachers were fantastic and that the program was excellent, but we're doubly thankful that the other boys and girls in Joshua's class are such a great little bunch.  The teachers have commented on how everyone plays together so well, and it's exciting to hear Joshua name specific kids in his daily narratives.  He does tend to need a little space, and a little time to get used to new environments, so it's encouraging to watch him embrace this new normal.



And of course, I took some "formal" first day of school photos of our big boy.  :)  I had all these visions of getting him to pose cooperatively while holding a special "first day of preschool" sign, but, well, he was a little too excited by all the events of the day, and very curious about what was on the frame I wanted him to hold...



This one was the very best of the lot:


Look at how grown up our little guy has gotten!  So thankful that this transition has been going so well, and can't wait to see how much more he learns and grows this year!

On the eve of preschool...

Tomorrow is Joshua's first day of preschool.

We've ironed name labels on all his clothes, given him a fun new firetruck backpack to carry to school, met his teachers, taken him to visit his classroom, and given him a rundown of the schedule for tomorrow, which he's been repeating to himself occasionally over the last few days: "On Monday, just Mama and Joshua will go in the blue car, and go to Joshua's school, and Mama will stay for a little bit, and then we'll say bye-bye to Mama, and then play with the trucks and toys and new friends, and then go to the playground, and then Mama will pick me up!"

I have no idea where he gets his need for controlled expectations.  ;)

I've been making lists and detailed plans for myself as well.  Though the kids typically wake up before 7, they sometimes sleep in as late as 8, so I'm setting an alarm for myself for the morning, just in case.  I've got breakfast planned out.  David has no scheduled activities for the morning, so he's on Sophia duty.  I've printed out a super cute "first day of preschool" sign and I'm hoping Joshua will be cool with me taking some photos of him holding it tomorrow morning.  Then I'll put him in the car, drive over while continuing to talk up how exciting and fun preschool will be, park in the designated section as close to the school as possible, walk in with Joshua (probably holding his backpack for him, since he's still got an irrational aversion to actually wearing the thing, much though he loves it), sign in on the attendance form, stay in the room for a few minutes to try to get him acclimated, and then walk out.

Leaving my big boy in his first classroom.

Thankfully, I have more tasks that will immediately need to get done -- I have to get a prox card for the building, turn in this month's tuition check, and then come home and make some work phone calls.

But ack, I'm feeling all nervous and weepy and nostalgic.

Funnily enough, David doesn't feel that way at all.  We talked about that some this morning -- David is really excited about Joshua's school, and his bent is more towards anticipation for the next stages of Joshua's life.  Which of course I share, but right now, any thoughts of the future beyond tomorrow morning make me even weepier -- before we know it, we'll be moving Joshua into his college dorm room and he'll be leaving home and, and, and...

We laugh about how I'm being the stereotypical clingy mother here, but yeah, it's really true.

I'm really hoping that Joshua will love his new school.  And I'm also hoping that I'll be able to make this transition gracefully and well!

But in the spirit of nostalgia and clinginess -- the kids and I enjoyed one final summer hurrah the other day, by playing outside in swimsuits.  :)  It's September, and the pools are closed, and it's already too chilly for playing with water toys, but I hadn't had a chance to get pictures of them in their cute swimsuits all summer, so I dressed them up anyways!




Looking for Joshua, who's off in the distance picking his beloved "teeny tiny pinecones":



How big is Sophia?  SO BIG!!


I wanted to get a shot of the two of them together, but Joshua was too busy running back and forth.  So this is the only one I got:





And Sophia thought her hooded coverup was hilarious:



(Or maybe she just thought I was hilarious -- check out the reflection of me all sprawled out in her eyes!)


I'm going to miss having both kids home with me all the time.  But it's obviously a good thing that they're growing and thriving, and we really are looking forward to this new stage of our lives.  (Three mornings a week, it'll be just me and Fifi!  And with her weaned and Joshua going to school, I'll actually have time for myself, for work and rest and non-kid-related endeavors...)

Just, please pray for us as we make this transition.  Hopefully I'll have a chipper update up here on the blog sometime soon!