pumpkins a comin'

Whitney track creation.  Tucker requests and she builds them for him

Ethan watching the big kids at the park

Fall color and wind. 

Tucker wanted me to take this picture of him

Glad to feel the sun on her face

Ethan's first "train ride"

They got the sleds out again to eat snack

Ethan almost sitting next to the pumpkins

I need to somehow get a video of Ethan sneezing.  Every time he sneezes, he makes this really cute cooing noise that almost sounds like he is saying bless me because of the timing.  He had his first swing ride.  Since he has started sitting up well and loves his bouncer so much, I decided to try swinging him at the park.  He loves it.  Smiles every time he goes the highest.  I don't push him too much higher than a baby swing, but just a little higher and he likes it and does amazingly well.  His rolling is improving day by day.  It's a bit of a frustration to him at times, though.  He only rolls to the right.  Jeremy calls him our Zoolander baby. Only can make right turns.  I even put a nice big blanket roll on his right side to encourage rolling to the left.  Nope.  All that did was strengthen those muscles even more because he was so determined to roll onto his stomach that he rolled over the blanket roll after much screaming.  Whatever.  I guess he doesn't like to listen to mom PT either.   And he is waking up about every two hours at night because he rolls around in his crib, but can't roll left back into his preferred sleeping position.

I was relieved to hear that the past weekend made a difference.  They incorporated what went in to their play.  They were playing "let's go whale watching" and "let's go watch conference" about equal time.  Phew.  Because they spent about equal time doing it the past weekend.

They are starting to show signs of learning to read.  It is more obvious to me that Whitney is getting the concept than Tucker.  She reads some three letter words.  At first I wasn't sure if Tucker was getting it because I would ask him what sound the letter would make.  He would say I don't know, then tell me.  He's not into such still and sitting games, but now he is getting more into it.  He also likes to mimic writing when he draws.  He will "write" different words small and his interpretation of what writing looks like to him in what he draws.

At the library this week we got a book about a fire truck.  It has a picture of a train it in, so that's why he likes it.  He wants another book with trains in it. 

We also got a book about mammals.  Tucker said "papa is a mammal.  He has a backbone.  He has a heavy backbone"  There is a part that says our skin is warm.  I asked Tucker if his skin is warm.  He touched his cold hands and said, no.  I guess he's not a mammal.  There is a part about how mammals breath air.  When I asked him if he was a mammal because he breathes air, he informed me he was not, as he breathes medicine.  True.

We went to the library after dinner, which meant it was pitch black.  Tucker pointed out to me that he "could still see in the dark with my brown eyes".  Then they had a discussion about how everyone's eyes are brown like Papa's.  Mommy's eyes are not brown.  They are blue.  Just like truck's eyes. Yeah.  So blue eyes are only on toys in this house.  Tucker really had to think about where there were matching blue eyes for me.

We went to the park on a freezing cold windy day.  I'm still not certain how many rainless days we will have, so we go to the park pretty much whenever it's not wet, even though it is really cold.  All the wind reminded the big kids that they had a kite that Papa bought them way back and they wanted to fly it. Good idea.  Except it was at home.  So we went home and tried flying it.  I didn't try too hard because, well, we have a lot of big trees around our house.  And power lines.  Not the best place to fly a kite.  So they ran around the driveway with them on short strings.  Tucker saw that and said, "Thing 1 (referring to Whitney) needs to get the kite out of the house".  He definitely has an affinity to remembering lines from books.

They like to climb in the cedar tree and "flap it's wings".  This means they jump up and down really hard on the limbs.  It does look like the tree is flying.

We spent an enjoyable afternoon together of them cooking noodles and salad for me.  They pulled a bunch of green needles of the well loved cedar and put them in their buckets.  They told me first salad, then noodles.  Hmmm.  I wonder where they've heard that before.  They cooked the noodles in their refridgerator and pushed the buttons on the nearby tree to turn off the timer.

We have orange mushrooms in our yard this year.  First year I've seen them.  They must taste good.  I suspect Rocky ate them all in previous years.

This one is for my dad.  They were "playing instruments" on their rhody leaves, just like he plays his recorder.

This one is for my mom.  Whitney started it first, but now they both do it.  They use different voices to make different stuffed animals talk.  Dump truck has an especially low voice.

They continue to melt my heart about the whole gentleman and lady thing.  They call each other gentleman and lady.  Tucker says "Lady!  Here is your water!" or Whitney says "Gentleman, can you help me?"  I love it!  Tucker made a point of taking out Whitney's bike first, even though his fiery Flynn bike was on top. He couldn't quite do it, so he got mad and yelled at Fiery Flynn for not letting lady go first.

Jeremy decided making a volcano would be fun. So we did it.  They had a great time putting on the newspaper to make the paper mache cone.  We were reading a book about Seattle.  It had a picture of Mt. Rainier.  Whitney pointed out that she wanted to make her volcano white like Mt Rainier.  I don't remember teaching her that Mt Rainier is a volcano.  But we did paint it white.  Whitney loved the pink lava coming out the most.

They came with me to Ethan's four month check up.  The doctor recommended that all of us get the flu shot.  I'm not a firm believer in those things, but they are free.  Tucker has to do it by injection, not the breathing in form like Whitney and I.  I was so impressed.  I couldn't believe how great of a job he did.  I tried at first to help him get his upper thigh exposed for the shot.  He wanted nothing to do with me.  After I explained to him what it was for and what was going to happen, he was totally fine with it.  He even helped expose the area of his thigh they needed on his own.  Then, when they gave him the shot, he flinched, but didn't even cry.  I told him after the shot, he would get a sticker.  So as soon as the needle was out, he was reminding the nurse she needed to next give him a sticker.  I made sure only he got a sticker.  This time he was also very attached to the bandaid sticker on his leg.  I think he thought this was his reward sticker.  He cried long and hard about it being gone when it finally fell off a week later.

Whitney helped me find a parking spot.  She found a good one right next to the door and told me to park there so they didn't have to cross the road and get squished.  That's what I was thinking, Whit.

Since we were out for the doctor, I went to Michaels.  The Michaels here has very small carts.  I guess it is not a kid friendly store, which is mostly true.  In order to shop there, I use our stroller.  Tucker took over and decided he would push Ethan. Ethan got tired half way through and some part of the stroller was probably pushing on his now tender thighs.  He started screaming.  Tucker wanted to calm him. He told me Ethan was crying, even though he was pushing him.  He finally pushed him over to the flowers.  Ethan stopped crying.  Tucker kept Ethan near the flowers the rest of the time there because "he likes them, Mom!"

Whitney picked out a miniature frame.  She loves that it is so small and has a picture of her.  I catch her often pulling it down to look at it.