New things

1. Peter has started eating some solid food. So far I have fed him banana and applesauce. And carrying on in great Hug tradition, he is a super eater!

2. Peter has been rolling over all the time these days. This is cool, except for the fact that he can no longer hang out on tables and I have to vacuum more often.

3. Hannah has been talking alot lately. Every time I as her, "can you say _____", she tries to say it...even grapefruit (altho, honestly, it really didn't sound like grapefruit). Some words include: applesauce, apple seed, Aunt Kim (sounds like "Ah Him"), push me, see, help me, hot juice, treats.
funny story: The other day we were driving and all of sudden Hannah exclaims, "Buhda." And I"m thinking, "why is my daughter getting so excited about Budda?" After about 5 minutes I realize she is pointing out blue cars (boo da's). Now every time we are driving she points out blue cars. And today we were at my sister's house and she pointed out a boo ite (blue light).

4. The other day Caleb we trying to help Peter crawl. He would put his hands against Peters feet and then when Peter stretched out his legs he would move. So then, of course, Hannah wanted to try. She put her hands against Peter and said, "push, push." It was pretty cute. (Side note: I think it will be a while before Peter starts to crawl. That is a lot of body mass for one small baby to move.)

5. Hannah is always wanting to be helpful. Every day, sometimes twice a day, we'll have this conversation.
H: "BBP applesauce"
K: "you think BBP wants applesauce?" or "I don't know if baby Pete wants applesauce"
At this point Hannah runs over to Peter and says,
H: gibberish, gibberish, "applesauce?"
Hannah runs back to me
H: "yeah"

She'll sometimes do this with other things too. Where she will ask him if he wants something. It's pretty cute.

6. Hannah can be convinced very easily to say yes. All you have to do is be very excited about what you are asking her to do. "Hannah, do you know what would be really fun? Let's wear overalls today!" To which she will reply, "Yeah!" Or "Hannah do you want to learn how to reboot the router?" "Yeah!" (although she's not very good at doing that by herself yet)

7. Peter has become pretty interactive these days. He laughs when you kiss him on his belly or on his cheeks and he smiles whenever you look at him. He can also follow me with his eyes across the room, or follow a piece of string cheese from your hand to your mouth (repeatedly). He is very good at grabbing things and putting them in his mouth. In general, he's super cute...just like Hannah. :-D

Peter's Dedication

Two weeks ago at church we had Peter dedicated Lord. It was really cool. It was much more of a personal experience than I expected. That week they were dedicating 2 babies; Peter and his cousin Keifer (Josh and Celeste's son who is 9 days younger than Peter). They called up both families. First they held up Keifer for the whole congregation to see and then they prayed for him for a while and then they prayed for Josh and Celeste for a while. Both the head pastor and the kid's pastor prayed a loud and several of the other pastors surrounded them and prayed for them as well. Then they switched to Peter. They held him up for everyone to see and they they prayed for him and us. It was pretty special.

It was also neat because Caleb's parents were able to make it up for the weekend to watch their grandsons get dedicated. So Caleb's parents were there, as well as my parents, Kim & Ben, Larry & Christin, and Melissa & Ryan. Thankyou all for coming. It was really special having you there!

Afterwards we had everyone over for a BBQ at our place.

Here's Peter in his cute little sweater-vest that we got him for the occasion.

Here he is getting prayed for...

Here he is being held up for everyone to see.

Here's Caleb holding the two dedicated cousins: Keifer and Peter.

Here's Hannah in the cute dress we bought her for the dedication.

Hannah Singing

Hannah and I like to sing. Her favorite songs are The Itsy Bitsy Spider, The Wheels on the Bus, and The Hokey Pokey. Often times she will do the hand motions in order to get me to start singing. Here are some video clips of her. Note: it's hard to catch her on video, but you get the idea.

The Hokey Pokey:



The Wheels on the Bus



The Itsy, Bitsy Spider


One more cute video - I thought I was taking a picture but it was really on video. :-p

E-I

This weekend Caleb's brother, Levi, came over to visit us. We had a great time chatting and hanging out with him. Hannah, too, had fun with Levi. However she has trouble with L's so she called him E-I. So here are some pictures of Uncle E-I with the kiddos.

Here's Peter and Levi

Levi with Kiefer, Peter and Hannah

Levi with Kiefer and Peter

And here are some bonus pictures of the 3 cousins taken Friday night.

Kiefer and Peter are only 9 days apart. They were holding hands for a little bit but I wasn't fast enough with the camera.

Hannah and Peter holding hands.

More family tummy time. As you guessed, it was Hannah's idea. :-D

Here's Kiefer enjoying his first swing experience. He liked it!

For Noah

The other day I was looking at Lauren's blog and Hannah came in and got all excited about seeing pictures of Noah. She kept saying, "more Noah, more Noah". Noah was Hannah's best friend in Boston. I'm not sure if it was because we hung out with his parents alot, or if it is because his name is easy to say... probably a little bit of both...and the obvious fact that Noah is cool. :-D

Anyhow, we went through several old blog posts on Lauren's blog looking at pictures of Noah. After going all the way back to the beginning of August, I convinced her that Noah would want to see pictures of her. Hannah has become quite clever about pictures. She knows she's cute and that taking pictures of her is a "privilege" so she will hardly ever pose for pictures these days. But by telling her that Noah would want to see her I was actually able to get her to stand still and look at the camera. So here are some pictures for Noah. :-D (And Lauren, I would like you to know that Hannah correctly identified you as "Noah Mommy" in the train picture)

You can see that even this picture where she is "looking" at the camera, she is still not very still.

Here's Hannah holding Peter's hand.

Puddle Jumping

On Tuesday as we were leaving Biblestudy it was raining. I don't know why this surprised me...I guess it is because it hasn't rained here in a while, but it's Seattle so I should know better, right?

Anyhow, on Wed we (Hannah) had a great time playing in the rain. She loves getting wet...especially getting her hair wet (which is why it surprises me that she doesn't like the shower. Kids?)

Here's Hannah in her cute rain coat getting wet.

Here she is slashing in puddles.

Here's a self portrait of Peter and myself watching her.

Here's video of her splashing from puddle to puddle.

one more milestone

8. Hannah can now go to the refrigerator and pick out the letter that Mommy starts with, as well as Daddy, Nanny, and Papa. Tonight she carried the N and P over to Caleb while yelling, "Nanny and Papa" repeatedly. Then on the way back she dropped the N. She said, "Nanny owie." It was cute.

Milestones

1. On Tuesday during the ladies biblestudy at my church I did not get paged by the childcare workers. This is the first time in 4 months that we have not had to go pick up Hannah midway through service or biblestudy. During the service she normally lasts about 20 minutes before they page us (or I guess I should say the child care workers last 20 minutes because in reality they hold her while she cries for 20 minutes and then they page us). Anyhow, my first week at ladies biblestudy they held her crying for an hour. This time towards the end she started to go down the slide...and she was smiling and happy when I picked her up. Praise the Lord!! This, my friends, is nothing short of a miracle!

2. Recently I have started taking Hannah places while she is wearing underwear (and no diaper). She has not had an accident. Even when she went to City Kids and cried for an hour, she still kept her pants clean and dry. I have yet to put her down for a nap without a diaper. I have not tried this yet because I am afraid of the possibility of having to give up that oh so precious nap time.

3. Hannah has learned to blow bubbles in the pool without inhaling half the pool. This is great, since it is the first step to learning how to swim. She blows bubbles in the bathtub too. And don't worry mom, she always gives you credit for teaching her how to do this.

4. Peter has rolled over. On Monday when I was at my parents house he was hanging out outside near a plant and he kept rolling over trying to grab the flowers. He hasn't rolled over since, but he is very close to doing it again.

5. Peter has started laughing. This is so much fun for me. If you kiss him on his belly he laughs. It's great. He still smiles a ton, which is also great.

6. I have managed almost every day this week to get Peter to nap at the same time as Hannah. And not just nap, but take a long nap (1.5-2 hrs). This is a huge accomplishment for me. Although I'm sure it has more to do with the fact that there isn't a dancing two year old singing at the top of her lungs during this time. :-p

7. As mentioned above, Hannah has started singing. Well, singing might be a slight exaggeration. It is more of a talking loudly while clapping hands and walking around type of singing. I'm not really sure if that fits the official definition of singing, but that's what Hannah calls it.

A Green Thought

You know the expression, "The grass is always greener on the other side". I've decided that Caleb and I must be on the "right" side because the grass is always green here (except for maybe 2 months this summer...but even when it's a little yellow, I think it is still greener than else where in the country). So I've decided that Seattle is always the "other side" since it's so green here. Just a thought...

4 Months

This week Peter had his 4 month appointment. It went really well. He has very good hand/mouth coordination. The doctor was impressed with how well he can grab something and then put it in his mouth. Hopefully this means he will be a great eater just like his sister. He was also a champ during his shots: he got two. After the second he wailed but as soon as I picked him up he stopped. What a great kid!


Here are his stats: Length - 26 in (85%), Head size 17 in (95%), Weight 20.5 lbs (still off the chart). It still amazes me how large my child is. The other week I left my snap'n'go in Spokane so I've been hauling him around in his car seat without the convience of wheels. He is a heavy boy. And to think that Hannah stayed in her car seat until 1 year, and Peter will probably have to be in a new one by 6 months (the max weight for the car seat is 22lbs). Wow.


So I"m going through all my pictures to find some to post of Peter, and the sad truth is that there aren't all that many. The second child (and every subsequent child I would imagine) really does get the shaft when it comes to pictures documentation. In my case there are two reasons why this is true: 1) With two little people to look after, you really don't have all that much time to be taking pictures, 2) With a bigger house, your camera isn't always within a couple feet of where you are standing, so when something cute happens, it's harder to get the camera in time so you just don't.


Anyhow, here are some pictures I found:

Here we are enjoying family tummy time. Hannah is the instigator of this event. She get's out her blanket and Peter's blanket (and pacis in this case) and we all lay on our tummies. Normally Hannah insists that I join as well (and often times she wants to get a blanket for me to lay on too) but she made an allowance for me since I was taking the picture.

For those non-parents out there, Tummy Time is important for babies because it helps them increase their neck strength. In Peter's case it's alot of work since he has such a large head. :-D

A couple weeks ago I bought Peter this swing at a garage sale. He doesn't like it all that much. Or it might just be the fact that I only put him in it when he's upset...hoping that it will calm him down, or atleast distact him. Anyhow, Hannah doesn't like it when Peter is upset, so she will run and bring him his paci, blanket, stuff animal, or whatever else she thinks might make him happy. I think it might be alittle overwhelming for Peter sometimes.

Here's Peter and I at my friend Susie's wedding. He's really fun to take places because he smiles soooo much. So at the wedding everyone who came over and talked to him or looked at him got a smile. He's already charming every lady that crosses his path...

Here's Caleb and Peter at the Grand Coulee Dam. The other weekend we were in Spokane and decided to take the long route home by the Grand Coulee Dam. It is huge! 1 mile long