Catch Up Time!

It's been awhile. Did you give up on me? Finals season is finally over, but keeping up with the kids probably has more to do with my absence here. Lately "keeping up" seems to get harder and harder!!

Amelia is walking, as of last week. She still crawls when she really wants to get somewhere, but she can comfortably balance for 8-10 steps to get across the room. She can also climb steps! We moved the stepstool from next to Noah's bed (he can crawl in without it, but she can't!), so her favorite climb now is up to the bathroom sink, to smile into the mirror, grab for her toothbrush, and say "aahhhh" like we make Noah do to open wide. We brushed her TWO teeth THREE times this morning before she even got her diaper changed!



She's quite the eater too, but thankfully she's gotten a LITTLE bit more selective about which non-food things she puts in her mouth. Even better, in the past couple days she has learned to spit back out the things she doesn't want to swallow. Did I ever think I would be thankful for the day they start spitting things out?? She talks more and more, even though I fail to realize it most of the time. She can say MaMa and DaDa when she wants to, but this week I caught on that she was repeating "Thank You." Of course it doesn't sound like much, out of context, but she's definitely mimicking us.

Keeping up with Noah is just as much fun. Lately he likes to hop. Everywhere. He's doing great with potty training, and he LOVES to visit the potties of EVERY new place we visit. Including the toilet section of Lowe's and Home Depot. He can amuse himself for hours with screwdrivers, scissors, knives (plastic), and shovels. And I'm almost embarrassed to admit, he's getting pretty darn good at Wii Mario Kart. He LOVES everything purple, especially if it's candy. HEB is his favorite store in the world, and he has an uncanny knack for getting the 50-point stickers out of the Buddy Buck crane game there. He counts to ten in Spanish, and beyond 20 in English and Chinese. He amazes us every day with the things he thinks of and says. I'm so happy that he's starting to catch on to "No, Thank You" and "Mommy, may I ____ please?" ... and he still takes a nice, long nap most afternoons. :)