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1.02.2013

A Basic Update

When you let so much time pass between posts, it's hard to know where to start. And then you might finish a post only to end up staring at your computer screen for 10-15 minutes trying to think of a title before finally giving up. Not that I know.  

In some ways every day feels the same, and in other ways it feels like so much has happened in the past month... the boys grow, change, and do new things all the time and overall I'm just horrible at documenting it. 

So, here's a bird's eye view with a few scattered pictures:

Helpers:

Jacob is our little helper! He LOVES to help! If you ask him to throw something away, he'll do it with great enthusiasm and joy. (But we're still working on what goes in the garbage and on not taking things OUT of the garbage). He "helps" Don get his jacket and shoes in the morning, and amongst other things he "helps" me vacuum, turn on the lights, and turn off the "loud" in his room (the sound machine lovingly referred to as "the loud"). He also likes to help Josiah and will give him sippy cups, toys, bottles, etc. I will note that he only does this when he already has the exact same thing. He would never give up the ONLY sippy cup, but if he's holding one and sees one on the ground, he'll give it to Josiah. It's pretty sweet. 

Josiah is a master of destruction and has no desire (yet) to be helpful. In fact, he mostly works really hard at undoing any "good" I do. I put all 100 Mega Blocks away, and you can be sure that he'll pick up the carton from the bottom and dump them all out and walk away. He has no interest in playing with them, he just wants them on the floor so that he has the option should he change his mind later. Same goes for books, cars, balls, and pretty much every other toy I ever try to organize or put away. 

Which reminds me... some of you may remember how I wanted to keep the toys limited to a couple of baskets... well, here's a recent picture of the playroom. And pretty much daily you can barely see the floor and are destined to step on a small farm animal, mega block, or other sharp and painful object. It's out of control.




Talkers:

Both boys are talking a lot. Some of their words include: "Daaadeeee", Mama, bottle, ball, dog, hot, car, drive, snow, light, go, loud, etc. 

Really, they repeat almost everything we say, including words like Desitin, though most of their words are only distinguishable to the very well-trained ears of Mommy and Daddy.

Gamers:

Josiah loves to hide! He does the hilarious and adorable hiding where he just covers his eyes or buries his head and sometimes if that's too much work, he just closes his eyes. He closes them for merely a second, but when he opens them and looks at you, you would swear he just stepped out of an invisible universe. He hides at the perfect times like just before nap or bed time (sometimes even while we're holding him), before going into the nursery at church, and when he hears me announce that I need to change his diaper. It kills me. Every time. 

Jacob loves to pretend. He has a huge imagination and loves to "drive"- every time we go to the car or get out of the car, he looks up with a big smile and says "drive"- "car" and then he starts to pretend to steer because he wants me to put him in the driver's seat so that he can pretend to drive. He gets so animated and excited. He also loves to pretend to stir up food and feed it to everyone in the family, including his stuffed bears, which is so fun to watch! 




And somehow they ended up with a little of their mama's Dutch blood and they love to sweep! It actually drove me quite crazy at first because all three of us would fight over the broom and dustpan after almost every meal, but thankfully they got their own little sets for Christmas and now we can all sweep together.  

They are at the stage of copying EVERYTHING we do, which often is hilarious. They will copy hand motions they see us make, they will copy facial expression, and they'll laugh when we laugh just to join in on the fun. 

Overall, they are adorable, hilarious, and clearly our sons! We think they are the smartest, cutest, funniest little people we know, which seems about right since that's what most parents think about their kids. 

As I've mentioned before though, not every day is all fun and games. We've been in the terrible transition of going from two naps to one and my boys (who used to sleep for an hour to an hour and a half twice a day) have decided that they'd like to sleep only about 45 minutes now. It's actually driving me quite crazy, so some afternoons you may find the three of us splitting milkshakes and fries in the car, just to keep things in perspective. :)




And just because it's funny, here's how they reacted to their first time seeing the washing machine.