Clean Up

Just found these pictures from last October from picture day at preschool while cleaning up my desk.  Whoops.  Especially since the next picture day is coming up on Thursday.  Better late than never, right?

Driveway Come Racetrack

Our driveway is long enough to park both cars there, if we wanted.  In reality, we only ever park one of them there.  That is about to change, as soon as the weather gets warm again (soon, please!).  Every warm day so far, we've had to move the car off the driveway so that the girls can get out their scooters and scoot up and down (mostly down).   Apparently, its length and slope are perfect for this.

Ready to go

Stunt girl

This is the only non-blurry picture i have of Vivian - she's too fast!

 Here are a couple of videos for your entertainment, too.

Click here if you can't see the first one


Click here if you can't see the second one

Annelee's 2.5 year well visit

I just realized that I didn't write a post about Annelee's 2.5 year well-visit.  Probably because it was fairly uneventful.

Vital statistics first, as usual:

• Height:  38" (96.5cm) which puts her in the 94th percentile
• Weight 33lb 13 oz (15.3 kg) which puts her in the 92nd percentile

Looking back at Vivian's stats from that visit, this surprises me.  Essentially the same weight, but shorter.  So far, she's always been the same height and heavier.  But I guess the proportions still match.  And the whole measuring business is more subjective than you'd think with wiggly children, they had to re-measure Annelee's head because according to their initial measurement it had shrunk (it has not; it, too, is in the 90th percentile).

While I thought we would have a discussion about speech (or lack thereof), Annelee suddenly started to add words and sentences (that even we can understand) to her vocabulary in the weeks leading up to the visit, so she was fine.

We asked about her temper tantrums, and - while we haven't implemented any of the suggestions the doctor made - they seem to have abated again, too.

The doctor did recommend that we start potty-training, even though Annelee is not interested ("Don't want it" is what she usually says). Her point was that it's about establishing the habit more than truly potty-training. So, we have started to suggest to Annelee to go potty, and she has had two (accidental, I think) successes.  Whenever it's a quiet day around here we take the potty downstairs with us and set the timer for her to go.

She doesn't like it much, but when I give her the choice between trying and putting diapers back on, the trying usually wins.  She has a bladder of steel, though, so I think any real success may be ways off yet.

But, we are being treated to sights like these :)

The princess on her throne

Between writing this and editing the photo, Annelee did go successfully before bed, so our count is up to three now :)

Supergirls

Last Sunday, we had our kick-off for the Capital Campaign to buy/build a new church building and kids and adults were encouraged to come in super hero costumes.  Annelee wore the supergirl costume, and - not to be outdone - Vivian wore a princess dress with her red cape and was super princess.  I took a couple of photos of the girls after church, too, still in their outfits, so I added those, too.

One of those rare moments at church where Vivian was actually listening.

Supergirl!

Annelee and Vivian with their new friend at church.

They found their super parents - Wonderwoman and Superman

Snow!

The big snowstorm currently pummeling much of the North East of the US may have missed us (except for little more than a dusting), but we've had snow several times already this winter, and both Annelee and Vivian have been enjoying it.  Vivian and Rowan built a snowman one day and spent a good amount of time just eating snow and crawling through it being some wild animals (snow leopards, I believe).

Annelee, too, has developed a taste for eating snow and generally gets quite excited when we dig out the snow boots, gloves, hats and snow pants.

We've even gone sledding a couple of times, but I've decided that that's not yet an activity for Annelee.  She likes it well enough, but I am usually totally exhausted after pulling her up the hill a couple of times.  Next year!

The pictures of Vivian and Rowan are from December, the rest is from January.

Rowan, the snowman, and Vivian

Snow-bathing

Yum - snow!

If my big sister eats it, then I will, too!

The matching hats were not planned

Children's Museum

We returned on a Thursday after our unexpected and sad trip to Virginia for Anne's funeral.  The timing turned out to be fortuitous for two reasons ... we didn't have to drive in the snow the next day, and we had a rare weekday off with Daddy to do something fun (because we all needed a fun day!).  We decided to head out for breakfast and then to the Children's Museum.  Due to the snow it was nice and empty and we had a great time.  I especially enjoyed that the girls were doing things together and at one point they held hands without being prompted.  So cute!

The birdseed table

Testing out gravity (it still works)

Seesawing pumped bubbles in the water-filled divider between them

Drawing pictures in the sand

The water area turns out to be a fashion hotspot, too ;)

Annelee is trying to get wet (good thing I brought spare clothes, because both girls succeeded with that mission)

Figuring out the lock

Stormy waters

Annelee loved hoisting up a ball that then rolled around some tracks under the ceiling and finally fell back right where she could hoist it up again

Spontaneously holding hands

A rare family photo!

Crawling through the tunnel wall

And last, but not least, a video of the rainbow tunnel.  Click here if you cannot see the video below.

Annelee at Daycare

One of Annelee's teachers takes a lot of photos at daycare and gave us a CD with photos from throughougt the year.  It's quite sweet to see her there during her day and not just at pick-up and drop-off.  Here are some of them.

Playtime in the playground

Nap time

Hard at work in the kitchen

A puppy visited daycare

Playtime

Planting flowers with one of the teachers

Artist at work

Ready to head outside to play