27 February 2013

26 February 2013

One of the things I like about Nut Brown is how he is so interested in trying things just to see what they do.  Two nights ago I had to put cookie-making with him on hold to give Bobo his bottle, and while he was waiting he spent the time flinging his sticky stretchy hand toy around the living room, to see where it would end up if he flung it like this - or like that- and trying to replicate previous results.  Inquiring minds want to know.

25 February 2013

My friend Vanessa wrote on her blog about a 'perfect moment' in her life the other day - a few minutes during the ordinariness of life when she felt like it was perfect, just right, and wonderful.  I had one of those this week as well.  Mr. Brown was looking something up online in the living room, and I came into the kitchen and found Rose Pink making a s'more over the space heater with some Valentine's chocolate, a graham cracker and a pair of pliers.  Nut Brown was reading a book about dinosaurs on the kitchen floor and the baby was industriously clearing all the magnets off the fridge.  I said to Rose Pink, it looks like you need a marshmallow, and she lit up and said, I DO!  So I got one for her and watched her try and melt the marshmallow over the space heater and listened to the baby chuckle and watched Nut Brown pore over the drawings of dinosaurs.  Everything was perfect, just right, and wonderful.  Thank you, God.

22 February 2013

 

Mr. Brown said that the baby spent an hour and a half moping around the house saying, mum mum mum mum mum... and then sent the following:

 

 

 Love my little guy.

21 February 2013

Last weekend we went to visit my parents in Pennsylvania. It was about nine hours in the car, and we stayed Sat/Sun and left Monday morning. We had a good time throwing rocks in the Susquehanna, looking at rock waves, visiting the geology lab (more rocks) and driving up and down the ridges and valleys. There was also a fabulous box of Legos and coffee table full of magazines for the baby to throw on the floor. It was a good time! Mr. Brown enjoyed the geography of Pennsylvania and we all enjoyed the chance to hang out for awhile. (That's Nut Brown behind the accordion.)

 

15 February 2013

A couple Nut Brown-isms.  He has a funny way of expressing himself.

During a discussion about public school:  "Would I have to go to kitten-garden?"

After Mr. Brown had asked him to repeat himself for the third time: "Papa, you have fuzzy hearing!"

13 February 2013

Nut Brown has been diligently working on making 'sh' sounds when he talks.  When he forgets, we repeat the word with the mistake and he corrects himself.  For example, he'll say, 'I'm wearing my red sirt, Mama!' and I say, 'Your red sirt?' and he says, 'My red SHIRT.'

On Sunday he came in and said, 'I can't find my Sunday sues, Mama.'

I said, 'Your Sunday sues?'

And he said very carefully, 'My SHUNDAY SHOES.'

12 February 2013

Rose Pink was in the living room, sitting on couch, diligently making potholders with the potholder maker and loops that a friend gave her for her birthday.  Nut Brown was also in the living room, laying on the floor, diligently shooting loops off his fingers at the ceiling.

11 February 2013

Rose Pink's birthday party was the last Saturday in January.  We had to delay a week because we all got sick.  She wanted a Halloween party, so I got out the Halloween decorations and we told everyone to come in costume.

Here's her cake: spiderwebs that play on her age (8).

Here are two tigers: one guest and one baby of mine.

Also Mr. Brown had a fabulous idea to put a spider on the ceiling.  He and I put up most of the decorations the night before, and the kids came down the next morning and said it was almost like Christmas.

The kids went 'trick-or-treating' at our bedroom doors and made each other into mummies and broke a pinata.  It was fun, and actually kind of relaxing.

chat

I can't count the number of times that I hear every day, "Pretend that I was...." followed by, "and pretend that I was... and that we were..."

8 February 2013

This morning Mr. Brown sends me an email:
-------------

Twice this morning I have heard the sound of little birds playing in the bird bath.  At which point I race into the bathroom to wash the little birds off in the sink.

And by birds I mean hands and by bird bath I mean toilet.
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Bobo is much much much more mobile.  He also fell down part of the basement stairs today because we didn't shut the door.  Besides the scooting and not-quite-crawling, he's also learned to pull himself up on things and cruise along.  His best new trick is pulling himself up on your trouser leg when he wants you to pick him up.  But the funny thing is that he still can't roll over.  If he falls on his back, he just lays there and shouts until someone turns him over. 

6 February 2013

Bobo's been busy learning how to pull himself up.  He will transition between sitting on his bum and scooting around to laying on his tummy and scooting around; and he can consistently get up on his knees and if conditions are right he will pull himself to standing. He's always very pleased to be vertical and celebrates verbally.  I love having a crawly baby around underfoot, and it's so fun to be interrupted while reading on the floor by a baby who wants to get up in your face and be kissed.

When he wants to love on somebody, he chews on your arm or shoulder or knee, whatever is within reach, without using his teeth.  It leaves big damp circles.

At the moment he has his two bottom teeth, but he's also cutting four teeth on top.  And he plays peek-a-boo.  It's so cute.

And he talks so MUCH.  He is especially chatty when he's getting tired.  In church last Sunday he busted out right in the middle of passing the sacrament when everyone is sitting especially quietly.  I tried to get him quiet but he instead started doing his baby roaring, which was hysterical.  Of course his brother and sister were giggling like crazy.  So funny.

5 February 2013

So on Sunday when other people were watching football, we went outside to play in the snow falling.  Nut Brown and I made snow angels and lay on our backs and felt the snowflakes falling on our faces.  'Do you feel that?' I said to him.  'Yes,' he said.  'It's like pieces of space falling down on us.'

'Look,' I said, 'there's a star up there.  Can you see it?'

'I see it,' he said.  'It's like a snowflake that won't fall.'

Then his sister and his father came out and we walked around the block and made snow angels on other people's lawns.

eyelashes

Mr. Brown has long eyelashes.  Rose Pink and Nut Brown also both have devastatingly long graceful eyelashes, completely gorgeous, although I'm pretty sure that Nut Brown would probably prefer his to be shorter because they often get into his eyes in a very painful way.  Bobo, on the other hand, has short eyelashes, like his mother.  It's so funny how our genetics transfers to our offspring.

1 February 2013

Nut Brown lately has been offering prayers while blessing the food that 'all the people who don't bless their food that their food will be blessed too'.

31 January 2013

Weather has been up and down this month.  It was cold at the beginning, then unseasonably warm, then unseasonably cold, and now it's unseasonably warm again.  Tomorrow it's supposed to go back to being seasonably cold.  In Rose Pink's opinion there has not been enough snow, although there has been more than last year.

During our first unseasonably warm spell, the kids and I walked up to the donut shop for donuts one afternoon.  Mr. Brown was busy working with a friend (and the friend's tools) to build a table for the laundry room in the basement.

The kids wore roller blades and when they got tired of rollerblading, they took them off and went barefoot.  It was that warm.

We, um, fed the baby bits of our donuts.  He thought that was pretty wonderful.  Mr. Brown was not exactly pleased when we told him.

The baby does love to get out and about, even when it is cold outside.  It was fun to be out and let the kids practice skating and have a donut.

29 January 2013

Rose Pink had a birthday and it was a big one!  She turned eight!  Mr. Brown made her an orange chocolate cake with orange custard filling oh yum.

She was anticipating her baptism for weeks ahead of time- since Christmas was over, it was all she could talk about.  I had some adventures in getting it organized because she was baptized with another little girl and also an older lady, and we weren't sure for awhile who exactly was going to be getting baptized on 20 January besides Rose Pink!

We made invitations and invited the ward, and it was such a lovely, lovely event.  My parents also came.  It was very evident from the Spirit that we felt that Heavenly Father was so excited for her to be baptized as well, and that he loves her very much.

Mr. Brown conveyed a beautiful blessing from Heavenly Father when he was confirming her.  It was so special.  She is such a wonderful girl.  I'm reduced to cliches to describe the experience of watching my daughter make covenants with God: it was very sweet, and I was overwhelmed with gratitude.

Bobo dresses up

Clark Kent

Green Lantern

Dalek Bobo

This last photo- Nut Brown stuck the dart on his head and said, "Look!  A unicorn baby!  No! He's a Dalek!  A Dalek baby!"

10 January 2013

This afternoon, Nut Brown called me down after lunch to see what the squishables were up to.  'They've escaped from their cage, Mom,' he exclaimed.  'They're up to no good!'

Me: I see Hedgehog is playing with the duplo blocks...  And Ugg is hanging out with Pooh Bear and Happy the Hippo...

Nut Brown: You have to find the others, too!

Me: Oh, look, Geronimo is sitting in the pasta box.  He must be hungry.

Nut Brown: It's a power source.  Where's the last one?

Me: Oh, I see Puff.  He's sitting by the packed up Pack'n'Play.

Nut Brown: It's a rocket.  (very seriously) Oh, I see! They're trying to put together a control panel and a power source so they can ride the rocket out of here!  They're so sneaky!  We have to stop them!

7 January 2013

The other night Rose Pink announced right before bed that she was still hungry.  This seemed somewhat unfair to Mr. Brown and I, as we had just hosted two other families for a buffet-style make-your-own sandwich spread, where the food was plentiful and readily available, so Mr. Brown said, well, you should have eaten more for dinner, and we sent her to bed.

When I went in to give her last hugs and kisses, Nut Brown said, 'Rose Pink is SAD, Mama.  She's HUNGRY.'  (He has such a tender heart.)  I talked to Rose Pink about it, and she said tearfully, 'Papa didn't even give me a second chance, Mom!  He didn't even offer me something I didn't want!'

Who could resist that?  I told Mr. Brown about it when I went back out, and he said, good grief, and then he took her a roll to eat in bed.

5 January 2013

Me, trying to convince Nut Brown to sit on my lap: My lap is lonely!  It's so sad!  It wants someone to sit on it!  It might start crying!

Rose Pink: That's called peeing your pants, Mom.

30 December 2012

Bobo sits on his bum and scoots around the floor like his legs don't work at all.  It's so funny.  Also he likes to play with the pedals on the piano, and got mad at me when I got in his way because I was practicing once.  Honestly, Mom, those are MY toys!

Rose Pink, when eating legumes with rice, tells stories of plague taking over or barbarians invading as she slowly mixes the two together.

Nut Brown's teacher told me a story about him last week.  There is a little girl with down syndrome in his class, and her participation in lessons and activities is erratic.  Another little girl in the class asked, 'What about Amy?  She's not coloring.' and Nut Brown responded, 'We just have to be kind.'  The teacher was touched by his comment, and it is a good example of his gentle heart.

Christmas was better this year than last year.  My parents were visiting, much to the delight of the children.  We were glad to have them.  Mr. Brown and I are still trying to sort out what we like to do for Christmas.  This year Mr. Brown suggested that when the kids stop unwrapping gifts to play with the ones that they already unwrapped that we stop and let them play.  The idea was that it would help alleviate the overload of new stuff by letting them assimilate the new toys a bit at a time.  We opened the last gifts at 7:30pm, and it was so much nicer than rushing through.  It worked exactly as we hoped, and the day felt less like an influx of new stuff and more like a chance to enjoy gifts.  Definitely going to repeat that next year.

Christmas was such a bonus for Bobo because there was so much stuff on the floor.  All sorts of things to explore.

Also I want to note here that Bobo finds the sound of the Kitchen Aid fascinating.  We made a fair amount of cookies this month, and every time the Kitchen Aid turned on, he would stare and stare at it and when I carried him over to see it, he watched in fascination as it went round and round.  He's easily soothed by repetitive noises- for his bottle in the middle of the night, the sound of the water running will sometimes almost knock him back out.

Also one more note about the baby.  When I wash his face off over the sink after feeding him, he tries to lick my fingers.  He's so funny.

photos