Updates

Things are going at top speed here and sometimes I feel like I can't keep up! Time is going by WAY to quickly these days. Wish we could find a pause button.

Soph has grown an inch in the last two months. Not a big deal to some, but that puts her in the 20th percentile for her age....that is huge at our house. The downside is that her favorite dresses and even nightgowns are getting too small. As will most kids, she doesn't care and tries to wear them anyway. Her latest effort is to wear pants with the too-short dresses. We give her credit in creative problem solving. This works well until she tries to take the dresses of and they get stuck on her shoulders and head and she thrashes around trying free herself until her father or I take pity on her and help wrestle her free. Surprisingly...or maybe not, she will put the same dress on later and the entire scenario will replay.

She likes to help me in the garden and pulled onions, carrots, and peas with me recently. The other day she had a pink dahlia to plant. I dug the hole and had gone to get some water and when I came back, she had planted the flower and covered it all up perfectly. This afternoon she insisted we plant an apricot pit/seed from her brother's snack. Not sure what will happen there, but I am certain we will find out.

She is really enjoying pre-school, especially Friday's when Mrs. Wheeler brings her organ and they sing songs. She comes home and sings all sorts of songs I had forgotten! She loves her teachers and a boy named Issac. He is two years older, tall, and blonde. Luckily, he heads to primary school in Sept. :)

She surprises me every single day with something she has learned, or figured out, or put together in her head. She asks crazy questions about God, Heaven, time, bones, erosion, what dead humans look like, viruses, bacteria, how honey is made, why flowers do not taste sweet if there is honey in there, why God made leeches, and if she can watch one Scooby Doo before bed. She tells terrible knock knock jokes and laughs like a hyena even before she gets the punchline out.

Hank continues to work toward communication. His newest signs are "help" and "all done" His latest words are, "Phia" "Daisy" and "Cash."

He has decided that he can no longer use the highchair and insists on sitting in Soph's booster seat. Being the gracious big sister, she has moved to a big person chair.

He has discovered a love of drawing with crayons and markers...a short-lived love. He traded his love of drawing for a love of eating the crayons and biting the tips off the markers. Now he only gets pens and only under close supervision. The final straw was when he and Soph were drawing and I went to get them some juice. I came back to the table to find him looking as though he has some sort of blue rabies. He had bitten the tip off a blue marker........and ATE it! He swallowed it. When he smiled up at me with his blue teeth and lips and blue drool dripping down his chin and onto his shirt I decided he should just stick with pens.

Physically he is still on the fast track. Running, jumping, climbing, pushing himself around in the little flintstone powered car, climbing things and jumping off, and DANCING! Tomorrow I will post the pics of him with my ipod. He holds it and an ear bud in the stroller while I run and has gotten pretty good at switching the songs. He LOVES the music and dances dances dances.
These photos are from the local park/botanical gardens. This place is the best. Soph is acting as ship's captain while her poor brother is below decks, chained to a bench and forced to row!

The park also has these tiny little thatched cottages. I refer to them as "munchkin land." The kids LOVE them.

Hank was following his sister inside...and I was following him with the camera.

From the looks on their faces, parents were NOT welcome to peek inside the little houses!