17 Great Moments from December 2011

Where was my camera all month? Only 17 "Great Moments"? Including Christmas? I don't know how to explain it but clearly I was very remiss during December. Let it be known that I'm documenting up a storm to compensate. So no future moment of cuteness will be missed if i can help it! Ok, back to December. Click here to look at the whole album (only 43 photos... shame shame). Enjoy!





Chocolate Toast, one of Auric's favorite foods. We did find one that has almonds as its first ingredient (instead of the sugar that is the first ingredient in Trader Joe's version of Nutella). So for Auric, it counts as protein.











Thora and River attended the Wheelock Family Theater production of the Urban Nutcracker. Fun! Although they agreed to disagree when it came to how much hand-to-hand fighting there should've been.






On Thursday mornings, Etta's dad, Greg, and I take care of the four little ones. On this particular day, we headed to the Museum of Science, where, for a short time, we had the Science in the Park exhibit all to ourselves. Here are the kids doing what we call, Racing the Lights. Enjoy!

Mia (on the right) has opened doors for Thora regarding what can be done with washable markers. Whenever they get together, the outcome is usually something like this.

Awww

In mid-December, we attended the monthly Kids Cooking class. Each month, a different parent hosts dinner at their house, during which the kids are encouraged to cook, with the hopeful end result being that the kids will be open to trying more foods. While I didn't manage to get photos of the cooking class (helping Thora with one hand, a glass of wine in the other), I did snap this one of Lila cozy-ed up with Sean. Lila LOVES "Daddy Sean." When we're all over at our house for a dinner playdate and Sean comes in the door from work, Lila is the first to run and greet him, before his own kids even! It's really adorable.



In mid-December, we attended a holiday party at Mia and Lily's house. In the basement is a rock star paradise: an electric keyboard, disco lights, and a full drum set. After one of the dads, a drummer in a rock band, wowed us for a while, the kids took turns. Thankfully Auric was the last to try it, because once it became his turn, he drummed for over 30 minutes. Auric LOVED this.










Here's a nice shot of Thora, mid-crash of the high hat.












Here are Mia and Thora, dressed to impress in Cinderella and Snow White dresses, and of course, with washable marker over all their exposed skin.














"What's a mop top?"












The kids and Sean relax one evening before bed. This shot captures all the many holiday cards we receive (the top string), our chili pepper lights, our own holiday cards that I've made since 2008 (the bottom string), and our 36" fiber optic Christmas tree (on the other side of the cd tower).






Christmas Eve, the kids opening one present each. Auric opens the Tinkertoys and Thora opens our own personal dvd of the musical, Annie.








Christmas Day began with a tune. We tried to inspire Auric's budding musical fascination with a harmonica, his first instrument of the day.










Thora loves to write! And so, with the help of Shutterfly, I designed her her own notebook, with pictures of herself on the front. She was happy.













Auric is thrilled to have his own "guitar." Really it's a ukelele.









Thora loves to design outfits for dolls and I thought that something that I loved as a girl, Fashion Plates, would be great for her. Thankfully, I didn't have to enter a bunch of ebay auctions, only to lose out repeatedly (like I did last year), for vintage 1980 Fashion Plates. Melissa and Doug now make their own. With these, she can create different outfits on a variety of models (by changing around the various plates) and then after doing a rubbing of the plates, she can color in the design. She loves this.







And we end with Auric in a box, the perfect image of a kid on Christmas day, finding joy in playing with the packing material.





Two days later, Thora, Auric, and I headed to Chicago for 5 days. Stay tuned for that post, coming soon...

24 Great Moments from September 2011

We started this month with a trip to Chicago. We had a great time (despite the heat wave that rolled through). We did a lot of the usual (the playgrounds, our traditional dinners at the Silo and the Rainforest Cafe) and a few things for the first time, like two trips to the LF beach and the LB beach. And miraculously, thanks to that heat wave at the end of a hot summer, the lake was warm enough to swim in. We had some great times. Behold! (For a look at the whole album, click here.)

We had a mini birthday celebration for Auric, even though he wouldn't turn 2 for another week. I'm glad we caught this on camera. The picture at the right is him having just been sung to. And it was by far his favorite experience EVER! Check out his giggling fit in the video below.

I like this one, although sadly this moment caused a ban of kids on the piano. Oh well. I have this photo, at least.














We spent a great time with my sister. As always, she drove all over Chicagoland from her place in the city to hang out with us.

We made our traditional visit to the Rainforest Cafe, which the kids love, and is conveniently located near my mom's place. Here is Auric with Grandma Jane.













A big hit after dinner is always the prospect of rides on the coin-operated vehicles. Auric absolutely loves this part of the tradition.














Just for fun, I wanted to juxtapose the photo of him from the previous January, 9 months earlier, in the same Garfield car. Look at that little baby boy!










Anyway, back to our trip in September. This was another highlight: riding in the wagon on the back of Grandpa Terry's tractor! If you can believe it, I'm squeezed in there with them, too.








This day up north included a trip out onto the chain of lakes. The kids loved the trip on the boat, even though it was windy and we had to wrap the towels around us when we were moving fast. However, that didn't stop the hot-blooded Thora from taking a dip when we anchored near the sand bar. This outing also saw Auric's first try at fishing. It was very cute.





On our last day in Chicagoland, we took the train downtown to the Lincoln Park Zoo. The outing as a whole was pretty much a bust (motion sickness on the train, poorly timed travel in relation to Auric's naptime, etc.) Ugh. It was not good. But while that wasn't a "Great Moment from September 2011," I'm quite partial to these two photos taken of the kids on the train down.






























When we got back, we had an incredibly active few days. To start, Thora had her first day of school on the Thursday after Labor Day. Here she is in a great First Day of School photo. She is in a Chinese Immersion program that does 4 out of every 8-hour day in Mandarin. It's a great program, and one that I'm so happy she's in.










Here she is, holding up her Chinese name, pronounced Ing Lay, which means ballet dancer. The transition to school and a language immersion program was a little rough, which is to be expected. But within a week, she was looking forward to school each day.








Here we are, celebrating Thora's first day of school with dinner at her favorite burger joint in Central Square.








The very next day it was Auric's actual birthday. Here we are celebrating it by doing his now all-time favorite thing: being sung "Happy Birthday." While yes, this is in fact another video of him being sung to, I like it for his attempt at showing Two with his fingers. Enjoy.

And then, the day after that was Sean's birthday, and the joint birthday party for Sean and Auric. Here are there cakes. (I show them only for their cuteness, and not because I made them!)




And yes, I'm about to share with you a third (yes, I know) video of Auric being sung to. But I like this one because it shows everybody, something our other videos don't capture. We had the party on a very windy, and unseasonably cool day in the park across the street. A lot of friends were there to help us celebrate.

Ok, now that you've seen that one, I promise, there are no more videos of us singing "Happy Birthday" to Auric. Just a bunch of photos of cute kids, for the most part with birthday cake all over them. Here is Auric and one of his friends, Ellie. Don't you just want to squeeze her?!?

Here is Thora being photogenic with a bouquet of flowers.


















Here are the birthday boys.













We got an informal game of t-ball going. I really like this photo because it highlights Auric's unconventional batter's stance and grip. Surprisingly, he actually hit the ball a remarkable number of times, considering.










Here are the kids going to town on the remnants of poor Elmo and Cookie Monster.











The big kids playing some sort of game. I'm guessing it involved chasing and killing invisible aliens or "bad guys" with super powers.









Daddy Thom was awesome. Not only did he pull wagon load after wagon load of kids, he also brought along his balloon twisting kit and made some wild hats and animals and swords for the kids.









Auric got some really cool gifts for his birthday, like this incredibly realistic recycling truck, which for months, he referred to has the "garbage can."










And we expanded his train set with two accessories, including a great bridge. Needless to say, these toys went over really well. We know our boy.






The second half of September was spent on a wonderful trip to England. See that post here.

But when we got back, Sean had the great idea (I admit, I was very skeptical) to go to the Southwick Zoo. Despite the rain, it was a great experience. We were one of just a few families there. And perhaps because it was less crowded, the animals were so active. In fact I've never seen such activity at a zoo in my life! It was a great time and the kids took a nap in the car on the way back, which helped them get back to EST.





One of the highlights of this zoo is their fawn meadow. The fawns were very friendly, while not being aggressive. We bought some feed from the coin-operated dispensers, and made a lot of deer friends.






And then finally, here is a video of Thora's new skill, acquired in the month of September. In this video, she's giving her friend Zach a Monkey Bar tutorial. She's saying, "And then I swing. And then I do this a little. And then I swing. And then I do this a little again." You can see, she's got the idea that she's supposed to be trying to create momentum between swings; however, as she demonstrates, you can see that she doesn't quite grasp how to create that momentum by swinging her body side to side. She basically just pauses and while dangling there, she twists her body back and forth. It was still a big accomplishment for her after working on this for years now. Enjoy.

Stay tuned for the next update of October's photos and videos!

Thora at 23 months

Trip to Eugene
We spent a week in Eugene, OR visiting Sean’s parents. We had a wonderful time. The weather was amazingly cooperative, giving us practically a week of sunshine and mild temperatures, something that’s pretty remarkable for February in the Pacific Northwest. And so Sean and I were able to do some of our favorite “Eugene” things, like running at the Amazon Creek bark-dust, 1-mile loop path and climbing Mt. Pisgah 3 times.
We enjoyed the company of Brian and Beverly, and grandparents and grandchild adored their time together. Beverly and Brian generously babysat at least some part of everyday so that we could go for a run or make a quick trip to the gym. Sean and I were even able to go out to dinner just the two of us and to see a movie, our second(!) cinematic experience since Thora was born.

Thora’s Numbers
It was during this week that Thora finally said the word “two” instead of her version up to this point: “kng.” And she’s begun down the path of the numbers between 11 and 20. She often now goes directly to 11 after 10 and then says 12. However, she hasn’t grasped 13, 14, or 15. She jumps straight to 16, but then gets 17 (“Fesen-teen”), 18, 19, and 20. She also regularly completes any counting to 20 (or sometimes to 10) with an impression of Count von Count from Sesame Street: “Ah Ah Ah!”

Thora Singing
And it was also during this week that she really started to sing along with us when we sing songs. Also recently, I’ve caught her, a few times now, singing a few lines on her own of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” or her absolute favorite, “Let’s Go Fly a Kite,” from Mary Poppins.
“Why these songs?” you ask. While we’re still holding off going whole-hog with tv/dvds for Thora, occasionally we will sit with her in front of the computer and play her short YouTube videos. In the past, I would catch myself singing a song from my childhood memories of Mary Poppins or some other movie. But usually I only remembered a couple lines and sang those over and over. Until, that is, I thought to check YouTube, where I found short clips from Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, ballerinas dancing the “Sugar Plum Fairy” solo in The Nutcracker, Ernie from Sesame Street singing, “Rubber Ducky,” Dorothy singing in The Wizard of Oz, etc. This has been great for Thora—she loves these videos and getting visualization of these songs I’d been butchering—and great for me, since it’s allowed me to re-learn all the words. The obvious drawbacks: she asks me to sing these songs CONSTANTLY and asks to watch these video only slightly less constantly.

Random things that I want to put down for posterity: Thora is fascinated with Sesame Street’s The Count and his “Ah, Ah, Ah!” She fixates on his bit roles in books like Molly Moves to Sesame Street and Oscar’s Grouchy Day. * * * I know a lot of kids do this, but she just started to tickle her ear with one hand while drinking, holding the sippy cup with the other hand. It’s really adorable. * * * Thora says, “Keys...Wallet...Phone.” When we’re all bundled up, ready to head out the door, before we even say something to this effect, she says it for us. * * * When Thora wants to be watched, when she’s doing something that she thinks merits someone’s attention, she’ll say, “Thora doing,” a shortened version of “What’s Thora doing?” This is another example of her saying the phrase that we say. * * * Some great books we discovered while in Eugene: Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes, Late Night Moon by Cynthia Rylant, and Time for Bed by Mem Fox, what will likely become our new final book before bedtime.

Music We Both Love: Stereolab's "Emperor Tomato Ketchup"

This is a great album for easing into the day. Songs like "Les Yper-Sound" is nicely reminiscent of a children's round. And "Spark Plug" has a nice, 70's-ish rock vibe to it. Very chill. And of course, I have the sneaking feeling that she might be learning French. What kind of French is another question. Merde!

Music We Both Love: The Rushmore Soundtrack

This cd rocks for both Thora and I. Thora really picks up on its sounds, the sleigh bells on "Snowflake Music," the crazy drums on "Piranas are a Very Tricky Species," the high pitches on "Margaret Yang's Theme." It's great for us during the middle of the day, the soundtrack to a meal or snack that then segues into some music play afterward. And of course, it's very pleasant to the adult ear. I find myself singing the infinitely-repeatable "Oh Yoko!" all afternoon, which is better than the other infinitely-repeatable song that I recently became aware of, on For the Kids Three: "...poop in the potty, poop goes in the potty, poop in the potty, poop goes in the potty..."