March Maddness

Hey cyber-friends, this post is a little late...but here are some random photos/tidbits from March and the first part of April. Prepare yourself for complete out-of-order and rambliness...

Now that Maggie is such a stellar sitter, she loves bathtime. I think she especially loves it when I bathe all 3 kiddos at the same time - even though its overwhelming (for her and me)! You can probably guess why I don't have any pictures of that event.

Happy girl doing some clapping with some toys.

Happy girl drinking some milk - we're really really working on this and I think we're making small but noticeable improvements in her desire and ability to use a sippy cup.

When any Loved Ones come over...they must be prepared to give all 3 kids attention at the same time. Here is Bee holding Maggie, doing yankie doodle with Rebecca and talking to Owen about the Memory Game he wants her to play with him.

Maggie enjoying her first "doodle" with Bee.

I'm realizing how quickly Maggie is growing because this photo has been in my queue to upload for a while - Owen feeding Maggie mushy baby food...and now she's totally moved on from the mushy stuff and is eating chunky table food!

He had a great time feeding her. When her tray isn't on her chair, she lies to sit with one leg sort of propped up, or in her hand. Ah, to have the flexibility of a baby. And the thighs.

This was an exciting night. The night we took Rebecca to Dell Children's Hospital because we thought she broke her arm. Kyle and I were out doing some driving tests to see if we'd be able to get our cars into our hypothetical new garage (answer - no - doors need to be bigger!) when we got a call from Nana that R had hurt herself and wouldn't move her arm. R's story was sort of squirly (although consistent) - she "fell on my blankie" (we think there was running and sliding involved). Anyhow, she wouldn't let anyone touch it and she wouldn't move it at all and she kept saying her "crack" (read: elbow) hurt. She was pretty pitiful...which you can't tell from this photo. In the waiting room, enjoying her little sling, and being almost naked in public...

A brilliant doctor checked her out and (without x-rays) was able to tell she had "nurse maid's elbow" - which means it was sort of dislocated - apparently something that is very common with toddlers. One little pop and everything was back in place and good as new. And the little sling has made a nice addition to our play doctor kit.

Owen is MAJORYLY into legos. Every day - every-day - he picks legos as his toy during Quiet Play Time. He's gotten really good at reading the (pictorial) directions to build things (like the house seen below) but also comes up with creative designs of his own. He is in his element.

Some numbers he built by looking at the picture on the box.

He's also doing a lot more life-like drawing. So fun to watch these little imaginations develop!

Um...blue tongues. I'm pretty sure Bee was involved in this...can't remember the exact details of the treat.

Some recent abstract art by Owen. It's a map of some sort.

Some of Rebecca's art. No explanation given or necessary.

When the kiddos go to Dahdo and Pam's house - I know D/P take lots of pictures. This is one of the few they remembered to actually share with me. Ahem.

Isn't springtime wonderful? Here are O & R having a little pretend camp out in our backyard. They're roasting marshmallows with Nana.

And now for information overload about each kid...

Maggie

• 3rd, 4th and 5th teeth have come in - she looks so much like Owen to me at this stage
• her first real clap (on her own) was for Bee while she was playing piano
• she is able to be put to bed by someone other than me finally! 
• she loves smoothies (Bee), bananas, black beans, waffles, turkey, cheese and pretty much everything else!
• 9 month stats: 28.5 inchs long/tall (50-75th%), 24 lbs 2 oz (97th%)
• we've almost got "bye bye" down - she can definitely do the movement and is starting to associate it with the words
• she's doing lots of "ba ba ba" and just using her voice to squeal more. no ma ma or da da yet

Rebecca

•  I could write a book with all the things this girl says/does right now...
• she calls us (and other groups of people) "guys" - look at me, guys! come here, guys!
• when she's not happy with a decision, she says that's not good for people! and now, that's not good for me guys!
• she loves to help me set the table. including knives and spoons we don't need.
• she (on her own terms) will ask me to "nuggle" with her (melt my heart) - but don't ask her to do it...you'll definitely get a no
• after she pee pee's in the potty she likes to say either hip hip horay! or ta-da!
• she loves to be in charge of what's going on and being said. if she's in the mood to tell a story or talk about something or sing something and you start to participate with her, you'll probably get a "you not say it!" (we're working on this...)
• loves to say that's so cool! and duper!
• loves to play "my spy wi my widdle eye" - a favorite when we were waiting in the ER
• since we're blessed to live hear so many immediate family members (not to mention awesome friends) there is almost ALWAYS a birthday coming up...and R LOVES birthdays. She loves going to parties, talking about parties, creating parties for her stuffed animals. There is always "cake, presents, candles, presents, cake, friends, presents and candles". But she also thinks she's pretty funny when she starts singing "happy birthday...to NOBODY!"
• pretty much every day she asks me when "my birthday comin' up???" when I say no, she says "who birt-day comin' up???"
• she has invented a game for she and Owen called "doggie/owner" - where she is a doggie (affectionately named TaTa) and he is the owner. She commands - you be the owner, I be Tata. And then she starts panting and crawling around on her hands and knees and telling him to command her to do things. 
• Her favorite toys in the world right now are a basket of kitchen toys including play food that she (and now we) call kitchen food - we play with it and dump it out and pick it up from ALL over the house several times a day right now...
• We bit the bullet and decided to push Rebecca to give up her nap. Funny - that Owen just gave his up a few months ago! R would love to sleep every day if given the chance, but we just couldn't handle how late it made her stay up (10:30 does not a happy mommy and daddy make - especially when Kyle tries to go to bed by 9:30 or so)! She was keeping Owen up too...so, how she has QPT in their room and Owen has QPT in our room (really just Lego Time) and evern though she's crankier in the evenings (and has managed to fall asleep once or twice for a really short nap), it's better and they're actually falling asleep earlier. Ahhhhhh...
• Lastly, my girly girl loves to get in to my jewelry and makeup and ask me what things are, etc. The other day I caught her putting ON my mascara. We're not talking just black stuff all over her face, we're talking she got it on her lashes (and did a decent job). Oh boy, trouble!

Owen

• Owen caught on to the fact that Kyle and I would refer to Rebecca as "curly" when we wanted to talk about her in code in front of the kids.  He broke the code and then took it upon himself to add to it - he's wavy, Maggie is spiky. All very fitting
• Everything is relative to the number "two quadrillion" now...Something came up about something that was 400 and he asked if that was bigger than 2 quadrillion?
• We have a true Austinite on our hands. One night over at the Foshea house, he and Emmy did a yoga video workout - not a kid yoga video mind you, the real deal. As you can imagine, Owen was very intense about studding the moves and he was getting most of them pretty right. Kids these days!
• One afternoon he wanted to do a science experiment from this little kit we have - but he wanted to wait until Rebecca went down for her nap because she "isn't understandable to the experiment". So true, Owen. 
• A little toy called "Barrel of Monkeys" was called "bearable monkeyes" for about a week.
• A conversation where Kyle was telling Owen he expected him to eat well at dinner...went something like this.
• What are we having?
• ...chicken...whatever description...
• I think I can work on that...I'll try. I can't promise, but I'll try. 
• Kyle and Owen took a fun man-outing yesterday...I'm going to twist Kyle's arm into putting up a post about it. :)