Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

In honor of today's solemnity, here is a clip of Stevie Wonder singing "Ave Maria."

Growing boy

Malcolm had his four-month checkup this morning. He is still on the curve at 27.5 inches tall and 18 lbs 12 oz, both the 98th percentile. The doctor said his weight was more in line with the average seven-month-old, which fits with what we'd guess with Mr. Canon. His head in the 95th percentile too, but I could have told you that! Malcolm was a little wary of the doctor checking his ears and mouth, but he calmed down when he was holding my finger and barely fussed at all when he got his shots. Such a sweet baby!

Family pictures

We did family pictures the other week -- Mike's idea was to try something different than our usual Target, and some friends from the ND Club have photographers they really love from McKinney who are really reasonably priced *and* give you the digital pictures with no fuss.  Their pictures looked great, so I was sold.  Things got off to an inauspicious start: Scheduling hiccups meant that we ended up having to go on a Sunday morning at 8 a.m.  Michael was only just starting to get better from a bad cold he had all week, so he was under the weather.  He also dropped Snoopy in the dirt on the way in.  And he was *not* smiling for the first ten minutes.  But somehow everything started working out and I was thrilled with how they turned out.  Link to the album below :)  (Mom and Stef, we'll get you the ones you liked!)

More letters

A few days before 25 months for Michael ... It is so much fun to watch him learning things while he plays.  Some days he just growls every ten seconds -- which is not particularly endearing -- but for the most part he is good-tempered and enjoys babbling a lot while he plays.  He can entertain himself for quite awhile, going back and forth between letters, blocks, books, and random toys.  You can pretty much see the wheels turning while he studies new things.  Last month we asked Amanda how we could teach him lower-case letters since he knew the upper-case ones pretty well.  She showed us a website, starfall.com, which has flash animation for all the letters.  He announces what letter he wants, we click on it, and it shows upper- and lower-case letters, a few words, and says the sounds.  Amazingly, he really gets it.  Last week he would pick up his new little magnet letters, say "p!" and then turn it upside down and say "d!"  (That's not on the website.)  Yesterday he was doing the same thing with "u" and "n" and "w" and "m."  A couple of days ago he figured out that if he presses the letters on the website it makes the sounds the same way as if you click on it (he can't move the mouse/cursor).  It took him awhile to locate each letter but by the time I got home from work on Friday he seemed to have it down.  So I think he's figured out the QWERTY layout too.  Letter order, not so much.  He knows B-O-Y is boy and C-O-W is cow (the only two words I think he knows how to "spell" by picking out the letters from his puzzle), but he usually arranges them for me as BYO and CWO.  Well hey, he only just turned two :)  I want to get him started playing with the awesome globe T got him for his birthday.  He recognizes the shape of Texas from a wooden state puzzle but that's all so far.  I love geography so it will be fun whenever he picks that up.

Other things with Michael lately: I find it amusing when he pulls Malcolm's blankets over his head and tries to walk around that way.  He usually ends up walking into walls.  He pretty much loves Charlie Brown Christmas and reads all three book versions of the story we have.  I have to sing Hark the Herald Angels Sing whenever he gets to those pages.  He definitely gets overwhelmed/afraid of some things -- when we went over to the neighbor house with a little train for the kids tonight, he freaked out and didn't want to ride, so we just stood on the outside of the fence and watched for a few minutes.  He respects that he has to hold your hand to cross the street, but he doesn't make the distinction as well in parking lots, which keeps me worried and vigilant.  He still gets jealous of Malcolm on a regular basis (and mad at me) but for the most part he is pretty affectionate when he pays attention to him.  He still loves music and likes to select specific songs on the CD player.  Current favorites include "Joe Cool" on the Vince Guaraldi CD and "Elmo's Song" on the Sesame Street one :)

HUUUGHES!!!

Elizabeth and the boys

I like the first one because it looks like they are having some serious conversation over birthday cake :)

Elizabeth is one of the biggest blessings in our lives over the past year.  I'm so excited about the new job I'm starting tomorrow -- but I wouldn't really have even pursued it if Elizabeth wasn't willing to continue being the boys' nanny.  She is just amazing with them and I have never for a second had any worries about how they are doing with her.  Michael had to do his own separate sibling adjustment time with her because he took her attention for granted before Malcolm came along, just like he did for us.  He has a lot of fun with her and Malcolm is already completely comfortable with her too.  Whenever he eventually starts solids, I'm pretty positive he'll like her cooking as much as Michael does :)

Pictures from Michael's birthday party

 

Happy 2nd Birthday!

 

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHAEL!!!

Halloween fun

I forgot to post about Halloween, but I wanted to post a few pictures (a few are from Chris's Facebook so not high quality yet, but I'll get them later :).  Michael and Malcolm were Ewoks this year.  The costumes were so cute!  Both boys were stretching the limits of them, though -- they are both kind of big for their ages.

We had a great time over at Chris and Stef's house for their "Boo Brunch."  The food was wonderful and I loved seeing the cute little babies' costumes.  It was also nice to have a place to dress them up for, especially since trick or treating itself was kind of a bust.  I thought Michael might like to knock on people's doors since I usually tell him not to do that on ordinary neighborhood walks.  I also thought the neighbors that we do see a lot might like to see the boys dressed up.  Unfortunately, Michael was only game for about four or five houses before he started flipping out and saying "no! no!".  I have no idea why!  It was all right, though.  I'm sure it will be different next year.  He ended up helping me push Malcolm's stroller back to the house and that made him very happy.

Happy baby

Here is Malcolm at three months old. He is such a happy little guy! Getting better at grabbing things lately.