Merry Christmas!

Hi and Merry Christmas! As always, time flies and I forget to post on my blog.

Things have been busy and cold. We've had some snowfall and weather around 0 degrees (sometimes above, sometimes below) and it's really hitting me that I live in Minnesota. But I've decided that it's really not too bad, and as long as I don't have a bad attitude about the cold, I can totally handle it. Some things I have learned:
--It takes twice as long to get out the door because of all the bundling up.
--If you put a tire gauge in your mouth in the winter when you are checking your tires, it will stick to your tongue (Steve actually learned that one).
--Whereas it's nice in the summer, living on the side of the street with the sidewalk is a disadvantage in the winter because it means more snow shoveling.

My kids are doing great lately. Ava started crawling! She is moving all around the house and I love it! Most parents say that they dread when their kids get mobile, but I like it because it means that Ava can get to what she wants rather than cry and yell when a toy is just beyond reach. She is much more content lately and it cracks me up when she goes over to Nash to steal his toys. Nash loves singing (as you've seen in previous posts) and he knows a few Christmas carols word-for-word now. It is so fun to sing with him. His favorite is "Deck the Halls." He loves to pretend and has enjoyed pretending to be a shepherd or a wise man lately.



One thing I've done recently is I sewed a blessing outfit for my nephew who will be blessed this month. It was my first time to use a pattern and I'm thrilled that it turned out. I did make multiple phone calls to my mom asking her for a translation of the pattern instructions (it's like a whole new language). Anyway, here are some pictures of how it turned out:

NaNoWriMo

November is National Novel Writing Month! Steve and his brother, Adam, are participating along with many others around the nation.

The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. That's a lot of writing. So far, the people participating have written over 591 million words this month. Wow. I'm not one of those people. But more power to all those who are taking the challenge.

To get in the spirit of NaNoWriMo, we threw a kick-off party this weekend. Well, I guess it wasn't a kick-off party, since they already started, but more of a momentum party. And a party with only three people. But we had a blast! Steve and Adam both did a reading of their work so far (and I must say that the writing seems like it is going well). We had dump cake (in honor of dumping the words out onto paper this month), we played Bananagrams (a fun word game), and we played a poetry-writing game where we finished each-others' poems by only reading the last line written.

Very fun indeed. And if any of you out there are participating in NaNoWriMo, good luck!

Fall Fun!

This fall has been fun. We did get some warmer weather post-snow, so I'm happy about that. We have lots of beautiful trees in our yard, so we've done a lot of raking. In fact, we still have some raking left to do before the season is over. Steve decided to cut down two trees in our backyard and did a splendid job. I'm still unsure if he wanted to cut them down more because 1) they were growing funny and are rather unneccessary to our yard, 2) he got to use a chainsaw, or 3) he could, because he is the homeowner.

We bought some pumpkins from the last local farmer's market of the year and we toasted pumpkin seeds and carved pumpkins. We went to a few different Halloween and Fall parties and Nash went trick-or-treating with other kids in our neighborhood. Needless to say, he is a fan. This is Nash's first time to seem to understand what "holiday" means, so I'm getting more excited for Thanksgiving and Christmas with him.

Growing up!

Ava is already half a year old! I really can't believe how fast time flies. She had her six month well-child check-up recently and was 27 inches long (90th percentile for height) and weighed 17 lb 12.5 oz (75th percentile for weight).

She can sit up like a pro and has quite a reach. She eats baby food and loves Cheerios. Lately she is really attached to me.

Her sleeping is getting a little bit better, but we still have a ways to go. We started "sleep training" again (the cry-it-out method) and after two nights of waking up and crying twice she had a night of sleeping for 11 hours without waking up! It was amazing. I wish it would have lasted, but it didn't. Last night and the night before, she woke up and cried again. It is really frustrating because our whole family needs better sleep! It breaks my heart to hear her cry and it is so hard to know if we should go in and check on her or help her when she wakes up and cries. Nash wasn't nearly this stubborn, so I don't really know how to handle it and still get the results that I want!

Okay, back to my sweet little girl. Other than the hard time getting a long stretch of sleep, she is really fun. She has a beautiful smile and lately she has really been interested in watching other kids play. She lights up when I start singing songs, too. I am so adoring of my beautiful Ava!

Singing, etc.

My calling (assignment) at church is that I am the Primary chorister. So that means that every Sunday I get to spend about an hour total teaching and practicing songs with children ages 3-11. I love working with kids and enjoy spending time with them. I am not very "musical" but as it turns out, I have enjoyed the experience. Once a year, the Primary kids get to present a program in church. They spend one hour saying thir speaking parts and singing songs all based on the yearly theme. This year, the theme is "My Eternal Family." Since I am the chorister, I have the songs running my head all the time and quite frequently sing them around my home. The other day during lunch, I started singing one of the songs and Nash joined in. I had no idea that he could sing the words! I was so impressed that I secretly turned the video camera on to get this video as we sang it for the second time together. It is amazing how much kids learn without you even knowing it!

Speaking of kids learning without you even knowing it, Ava picked up a new thing recently. She has started shaking her head. She did it one morning (below) in response to Steve shaking his head when he was talking to her. Now she does it a lot when she is happy or excited about something. It is really pretty funny.

Today we went to visit Steve's work so we could see his office. We had a good time. He works in a building that has industrial style decor and is nice and open and light. We had a nice time visiting his work and meeting some of his colleagues.

Laughing and Learning

Lately Ava thinks Nash is so funny! She loves to watch him and she laughs when he does funny things. Of course Nash loves this because it means that his little sister is finally interacting with him. Here is a video of Ava laughing at Nash:

Nash is a smart kid. He always amazes us with how advanced he seems. He is an amazing speaker and has an incredible vocabulary. He is easy to talk to and understand and he remembers words really well and uses new words in appropriate ways well after he has heard them. He absolutely loves books (I probably read at least 10-15 books a day to him; it'd be more if I honored every request). Months ago, my mother-in-law started teaching him to read by learning sight words (words that are already in his vocabulary that he can "read" by looking at the word as opposed to sounding out the letters). We haven't done it in awhile, but picked up the cards the other day and were amazed that he remembered them! I added two new ones and took this video:

Sometimes he says really funny things as he's trying to figure out how to express himself with words. These are some that I've enjoyed recently:

Talking about a strainer: "This is a noodle basket."

Driving past a field: "Oh! Crops!"

When asked if he wanted teddy grahams: "I want teddy bears AND grahams."

As we were building a restaurant out of Duplos: "This is a rest-on-it [that's his word for restaurant]. It has rest food in it."

Eating a bowl of Chex cereal and holding up one of the pieces: "Daddy, look! It's a check."

Pointing to his shirt with a number on it: "This is a t-shirt." I respond, "You're right! It's a t-shirt." He says, "No, not a t-shirt, a team shirt. Go, team, go!

He also just started his first day of "playgroup." He is in this group with 3 other 2-3 year olds. He had a blast and didn't want to leave! It is for an hour and a half once a week. The moms are taking turns hosting it. When it is our turn, we sing an opening song, talk about the weather, provide a snack and a short activity. Then the rest of the time is for play or whatever else we choose to do. I like that it isn't too structured--it is just enough for a 2 year old. Here are some pictures of Nash before his first day of the playgroup:

Ava is an absolute doll. I have to admit that we are having issues with sleeping, but now that she is over a small sickness she had last week, we are fully dedicated to "sleep training." She is doing good, but is stubborn. I hope she learns to put herself to sleep soon and learns to sleep longer stretches, because I am in desperate need of a good night's sleep! She can now roll over both directions, but would rather stay in one place until someone comes to play with her. She has a great smile and a great laugh as evidenced in the first video. She loves to be outside and she loves to be held. She likes to grab her toes and she loves chewing on toys. We just started giving her rice cereal and she loves it. She focuses in on the spoon as it comes toward her mouth and swallows the cereal really well. Here are some pictures of Ava eating cereal:

Pictures of our House!

I've finally finished most of the decorating and now have pictures of our new house for you to see! We couldn't be happier with our house and feel so lucky to be here.


Here are pics of the outside of our home:



This is our living room:

Here is our kitchen:

Our main floor bath (we also have a master bath, not pictured):

Our master bedroom:


Here's Nash's room (thanks, Nancy, for the blanket and pillows you gave me so long ago!):

And Ava's room:

And finally, our basement (notice the cute little house Nash and I made out of a box):