Engineer in Training

A pile of wood and a little imagination... I love seeing the creativity of kids! Hannah wanted to make slide too, but "mean mommy" squashed that idea (and told the story of how that worked out for poppi when he was a little boy... a rough board leaned up against a fence. Well, you get the idea!)

Word Explosion

Well, it has happened... no, more accurately... it is happening. Just like my husband, my mother-in-law (and countless other people) said it would, but when one daughter sings her ABCs before she turns 2 and the other, well, she primarily yells, MAMA, even after she turns 2, you wonder.

Yes, Grace's vocabulary is exploding. Every day it seems, she says something like "Up, please," I do what she says (without thinking) and then I stop and ask, "did you just say please?" She proceeds to smile her big Gracie smile, because "wow, mommy understands me!" It is simply amazing.

Today she wanted to put on underwear (yes, the one who didn't talk is potty training herself... go figure) and she said "El-me." This is Grace talk for Elmo, i.e. the Elmo underwear. Before today, she had never even attempted to say Elmo. It is really cute.

So Gracie may be ALL 2, but she is going to be 2 with a vocabulary. Maybe this will cut down on the screaming tantrums. A mom can dream, can't she?

Some of Gracie's words as of September 2011:

• El-me (Elmo)
• Happy (part of singing Happy Birthday... This consists of saying Happy over and over again, and then ending with "blowing out the candles")
• Mom-mee
• book
• cheese (teez)
• up
• down
• please
• uh oh
• baby (ba bee)... a change from baba
• amen
• Knock Knock (to which we answer "who's there", she responds "uh oh," we say "uh oh, who?" she answers "dada dada dada")
• ow-ee (seems to be getting these a lot these days, including rolling half-way down our entry-way steps)
• pop (popsicle or lollypop)
• snack (old favorite)
• hop
• ball
  

First Day of School

And so it begins... Hannah had her first day of preschool today. Daryl said she didn't even look backwards when he dropped her off at her class. Hannah informed me that they didn't have "circle time" because it was really a square, so they had "square time." Our little scholar... I think she is just "wired" for school.

The last picture is for Grandma Olson. Hannah is putting her tissue into her bag. Daddy remembers Grandma giving him a whole bunch of tissues on his first day of school. They all fell out at school and he was embarrassed. He said he remembers her giving him tissues on the first day of high school, college and seminary! The tradition continues!

Wordless Wednesday

Gracie's story

Grace has started "telling" us stories. It is really cute and quite humorous. For the longest time, her story (repeated often) was about the 4th of July parade. She would cover her ears for the loud firetrucks. She would make a throwing motion for the people who threw candy. Then she would point to Hannah and Mommy who picked it up. Finally she would pretend to eat it for all of us eating the candy.

Here is her latest story.

In case you need further translation, the grunting is the dog going to the bathroom. The "crying" face is us being sad because no one cleaned up the mess. This one isn't her best performance, but it is hard to catch her with the camera.