Skinny Babies and Pow Wow Dancing

I have skinny babies. I see other people's new babies,and it seems so weird that they are round and chunky, and look like babies on tv. My little people, however, look just like I did, to a certain extent. This is not a problem, just an observation. 

Some of my babies also have an intense stare, even from birth. I don't know how this compares to other kids, but they almost always hold their heads up from birth, and just stare intently. My mom always says that's what she remembers about my birth: the fact that I was not crying, but craining my  neck around and staring at the room.

When Elora was four weeks old, we got her pictures taken professionally (I will never spend that much on pictures again!) The photographer of course was surprised at her alertness and interest in the camera. I love these pictures of her!

 

 I have observed our new baby, Elijah, with almost the same exact expression on his face. And now I present, my short video of said baby, which I will call, "The Stare".

Wasn't that exciting? And now for something completely different. 

At Elora's school, they don't really have a Spirit Week, or Read-a-thons, Spelling Bees or anything like that. Whenever there is something big, it's usually a Pow Wow. 

 

As happened last year, the pow wow was inside due to bad weather. I stayed home with the boys because it was nap time and I wasn't comfortable taking the new baby around so many people, but Joseph was there and got some cute pictures of Elora at the celebration.

Elora with her class. She has the dark jacket on.

He says she was out there dancing with everyone else, imitating their moves and having a great time! 

 

I asked him if she's the only white kid in the elementary grades, and he says there is one kid in the fourth grade who is registered as Native but looks white, but he wasn't there that day. 

can you spot her in this picture?

I'm just glad she doesn't feel singled out at all, and is enjoying her time at school!

workin' at the car wash

I was just experimenting to see if I could load a video on here again (I haven't been able to in a long while.) This is a pretty short one, but it worked! I love how Jonah is playing in the water instead of washing the car.

This was our first time washing our car by hand as a family; it was pretty fun! Here are some pictures too:

Jonah's Two Teeth

So, Jonah only has two teeth. But Joseph decided it was high time he had them brushed- especially since he's always so interested when Elora and Joshua brush theirs. He thought it was great! Though it was kind of tickly. Is that a word?
Enjoy!

Attack of the Baby

Jonah is so silly. He likes to ATTACK!



the only thing I don't like about this video is my annoying voice in the background.

Sleepy Josh

There is a reason two-year-olds should take naps. I caught this video of Josh falling asleep at dinner the other day, and he had no idea I was actually filming him.


I love how he drools, asks to have his hands washed, and hits his head on his cup and almost falls out of his chair at the end. I mean, poor little boy, he must be tired.

Adventures with Shaving Cream

Most of you are aware that Joshua has been quite a handful in the last few months. He has emptied multiple tubes of toothpaste, bottles of dish soap, contact solution, and body wash; locked us out of the house (to his own great amusement); climbed on the counters to get into Vaseline, medicine, diaper cream, hair products, etc. ; stopped taking naps; increased his screaming and tantrums (probably a direct result of the nap thing); and in general he has been a very naughty boy.
In fact, even though we try not to call him that, he likes to refer to himself by that title. When we tell him he is not a naughty boy, he will insist that he is, and will recount something naughty he has done that day, like he is proud of it.
Poor middle child. He's lucky he's so cute.
Anyway, I happen to have caught one of Joshua's latest adventures on camera...I'm sure you can guess what it was by the blog post title!

Elora at Josh's age

So you just saw a video of Joshua, he's about 22 months old right now. I was recently viewing this video of Elora at the same age, shortly after we moved here. Its weird to see how different kids are at the same age! I was trying to get her to sing the abc's, which she could usually do much better but she was a bit distracted for the video. You can definitely see she still has the same personality! Don't worry about her with the marker, we've always kept boxes and big papers around for her to draw on, and she's always been very good about not drawing on the walls. Josh on the other hand.....lets just say we don't keep markers out anymore.



This was with our old camera, you know, the one that didn't shoot video too well? Still, I'm glad to have it. They grow up so quickly! If you haven't watched the last post of Joshua climbing on the chair, you should.

Cookies!

This is reloaded...the first time the video was out of sync, but I think its fixed now!
So, yeah, Joshua saying "cookie" is a lot like the video of him saying, "I cooking!"
I just thought it was cute that he climbed up and opened the cupboard trying to get them. Maybe its just a mom thing. I love the beginning where he's talking to himself about it..he's saying that it's blue.. then his voice gets more demanding when he notices I'm watching. I also like the ending.
And I just have to apologize for Elora making noise in the background. And my getting angry. But it was really annoying!

Joshie's naughtiness of the week

What has Joshua been up to this week? Well, lets have a look. Did I mention he always wants to cook like daddy? Usually mommy catches him before he gets too far, but I guess mommy was distracted this time. In my defense, he was playing with dishes in the sink when I checked on him before this...his other favorite pastime!



After I took this video,I did find two more bowls covered with oil, that he had been frying in daddy's pan of oil (which mommy thinks is disgusting, but thats another story). At least he didn't really have the stove on! Ugh.
Oh, and if you missed it, this was Joshie's exciting adventure last week:


Doesn't he look pretty in mommy's lipstick? He's not wearing a shirt because we had to change it...it too was all covered with lipstick. Later that day, he painted his lips with eyeshadow. Both times, I must say, Elora was an accomplice. She knew better than to put it on herself, but she held the tools for him while he applied it to his face. (He also enjoys uncapping daddy's deodorant and wiping it on his tummy and neck. He does like to be fresh and clean!)

PS in a happy side note...Josh has been asking to go #2 on the potty for a few weeks now! He will say, "Poop. Potty, potty!" Then we run to the potty and he actually goes! We've been letting him pee after every diaper change (and he really does it!) for a month now, but the poop thing was his idea. Big boy!

Joshua and the Letter F

So, I had an alternate, much more provocative title for this post....but I knew I'd get way too many weirdos googling it, and it might offend someone. Use your imaginations.

As you might have guessed, this is about all the fun things Joshua is learning to say. There are many phrases he can say perfectly well, like, "I did it!", "It doesn't work", "daddy's at work", "its raining" (even though its really snow) and "Tired, bed!"

Some of his favorite words, as it is with most toddlers, have to do with food. He is always shouting "cookie!" "cracker!" "candy!" "dia!" (which means quesadilla) "milk!" etc. And being a boy, he loves all his 'boy' words too: "yuck, poop, bum, potty, ewww, truck, car, plane, .." Okay, Elora likes those words too.

Being a sweet boy, he also likes to talk about the softer things in life, like "baby, honey (an alternate name for Elora's babies), and Annie.

There are a few letters that he has a hard time with of course. The most obvious is- you guessed it- the letter F. When one remembers that he can't say this letter, then he's completely understandable, but otherwise you might be confused at what he's saying. For instance, when he references his foot, he says, "Whoot". Face is "Wace", and for the fan in his room, he has the alternate name of "the wind," which is much easier to say. Fork is "work", and frog of course is "Wog", or the easier "Riddit" (ribbit.)
(Elora used to say "bit-bit"...but that was long before she was Joshua's age...she doesn't have problems with any letters, so this is a new experience for us!)

Oh yeah. He also likes to say "snake" and chase everyone with a toy snake (or a plastic bug, or anything else that's on hand.) Its so funny to watch, because he screws his face up trying to make it scary, and he always squints one eye like a pirate. Last night, he was pretending his pizza was a snake. Of course when I got the camera out, he stopped making his funny face, and wouldn't be silly anymore.. Then he did what he always does with the camera: he said, "cheese!"

Take On Me

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have to say one of my favorite music videos from the 80's was A-Ha's "Take On Me". You know, the one where the girl jumps into the comic book drawing? Recently, my sister showed me this awesome spoof on You Tube. Its the same video, but the words are a little ..... different. You've GOT to watch it. Well, at least I thought it was funny.

Hallelujah

July 10th. A day like any other. Except...Joshua started walking.

We were able to capture video of this phenomenon moments after it first manifested. The motivation for this burst of gross motor skills? A mini kit-kat bar held by daddy.

Of course, since this day, Joshua has decided walking isn't really for him, but we hope he reconsiders his position. Please excuse his naked legs.







And if you didn't get enough, here's a second video without Elora's interference. Don't worry, its short.




FYI- before we took these videos, I asked Joseph to please pick up Joshua's toys so they weren't all over in the background of the film. His solution was to pile everything in one spot- directly where I was filming. Good job.

Introducing the nerd of the household

While we were at the lake, Joseph took the camera from my hands to snap a few pictures of me, as I always complain that I'm never in any of our photos.

He pointed the lens at the kids first, and I started whining that he was supposed to be shooting me. Then I started posing and being pouty, trying to be cute I guess.

Yeah...thats when I realized he had the camera on 'film' mode. And I also realized what a dork I am. I debated on whether to show this to everyone or not. But then I figured, many of the people who read this blog regularly already know I'm a nerd. And for those of you who weren't aware of this fact? I apologize, but felt you deserved to know who you were fraternizing with.

Besides, it can be entertaining, right?




Incidentally, he did get a few photos of me after this, at very artful angles even if my face was in shadow. I'll publish the one I spruced up a little:






Oh, and Joseph? Here's the best picture of you, punk:

Wake up sleepy head

Country Dancing

Elora's daddy is teaching her young. Hmmm, I wonder if preference in music is reversible?
ps- excuse the shambled state of our living room.

Camera feature # 4,815,162,342: The video

Okay, the camera doesn't really have that many features, but I still like it. The feature we're exploring today is video. Perhaps some of you remember a video I posted from our other camera: pixelated, small, and not very clear. If you don't remember, I'll give you a side by side comparison, shall I?
Here is a video from our old camera, take in February. (I hope you can see this.) This is Joshua getting mad at me because I won't pick him up. He yells a lot.



Okay, now here's a video from the other camera. I hope it doesn't make it so you can't load this page! I was going to post a hilarious video of Joshua laughing at Elora, but its actually too big to load here...this one isn't as cool, but you can see the quality at least. (We don't have the software to edit and make it smaller, sorry.)


ps the only reason this video is so dark, is that i was messing with the lighting on the camera before Joseph took the video.
Thank you for your time.

Do you like my video?

Okay, our camera makes really really bad video, its not its main purpose, obviously. But at least you can hear how cute Joshua sounds at three months! I also have to post this very cute picture of Joseph and Joshua in the mirror. Aren't they just spitting images of one another?


Not much exciting is happening here, thus the absence of any new posts. Lets see...Elora has finally started using her potty chair again. The last two nights she was running around naked before bath time, and she came into the front room carrying the 'pot' and it was full! We were very surprised and she was quite proud of herself. Its still the only time of day she will go, but its a start!
For Labor Day weekend, we made a spur of the moment trip to see my parents. Now we live only six hours from them instead of twenty-two. In hindsite, it was probably nuts to leave our house at 8:30 at night to spend a day and drive straight back the next night, but the surprise factor was definitely worth it.
We called my brother right before we left and asked him to set up a crib in his room, and to expect us to be knocking on his window around 2:30 AM. We were glad we didn't wake our parents up too, but we did manage to arouse my 18 year old brother, who came into the livingroom carrying a bat. He thought we were robbers.
Elora was very excited to go see everyone again. She only had one moment around 10:00 at night on the drive down that she said she wanted to go home and "take a nap". But once she fell asleep it was smooth sailing.
We got to go to a parade and a county fair, which was much more fun than hanging around our house, which we would have done otherwise. Elora and Joshua and I went with my mom to the cemetary too. We used to go every Memorial Day, but since I've lived away for seven years it was nice to go see once again, even though it wasn't the right holiday. This bench was a memorial for my great aunt who recently passed away.



Sorry to everyone who lives there that we didn't visit....there just wasn't time. We will probably visit again around Christmas. How was everyone else's Labor Day?