Latest achievements

Jude is now nearly 7 months old; what has he been up to?

• He is now sitting up unassisted, though very hunched over to try to maintain his balance.
• He's grabbing at puffs and successful of getting into mouth about 50%. Most times he can rake them into his hands, gets the hand to the mouth, but can't quite figure out how to let go once there.
  
• He is wicked good at gumming gramcrackers
• He is sometimes making "Mamama" sounds
• More often his is making "Bababa" sounds as his means of communication
  
• Lots of raspberries
• He's still very good at squealing with delight
• Sometime he "Sings" along when we are singing hymns at church. Very cute
  
• He's holding a bottle by himself while laying on his back.
  

And Tam. . . he's been doing great too!

• He has been helping with making cookies with me in the kitchen
  
• He's helping Brian with making pancakes. Tam's really good at mixing them up in the bowl.
  
• The latest trick is turning on/off light switches around the house.
  
• He's beginning to do more and more imaginative play with tow trucks and cars.
  
• He's loving Sunday School and playing with other kids
  
• Tam's even talking about things that have happen during the day that have actually happened. Though to get any sensible response from him, I need to ask him quite quickly after it has happened or else it is forgotten.
  
• Oh, and he has been mastering Wii games. A current favorite is bowling, which he is actually pretty good at.
  

The moon

It's the Christmas season and Brian is, once again, singing with the Victorian Caroling Group. Looking at our schedules, I wasn't sure if I would be able to make it to too many of his gigs. So, I chose to haul the kiddos out to one of his strolling gigs through a nearby shopping strip. The weather was chilly enough that everyone bundled up, noses got a little pink, but it wasn't terribly bone-chillingly cold. I strapped Jude into the hiking carrier and swung him up on my back. Tam danced around near my side as we went store to store hearing daddy sing songs and checking out the holiday decorations. Most of the shops had free drinks or treats for strollers; many folk loved to talk to friendly Tam and make sure he got something sweet to eat. Tam's favorite store, by far, was the donut shop! Not because we got a few cookies there (which were great) but that they had a huge display of toy cars around the little cafe. Of course, we kept going back to see the cars. And, we got to hear Christmas carols!

The gig ran a little late into the evening, so the moon was well above us as we drove homeward with a couple of sleepy kids. It was a clear night, so the full moon was bright and shining above us. Tam looked out of his window and exclaimed "there's the moon, mama!", "It's up in the sky!", "It's white!". Yes, Captain Obvious, all of that describes the moon.

Then a few moments later, and a few turns down the road...
Tamlin, "The moon is following us." This seemed to amaze him.

A few moments later as we turned down our street...
Tamlin, "Yoo-hoo, Moon?". Because of the turn, Tam couldn't see the moon out the window any more. He was calling to it to make sure it was still above us.

When we got home, and out of the car...
Tamlin, "There's the moon!"

Just before he crawled into bed.
Sleepily, Tam profoundly states, " The moon watch Tam while I'm sleeping, mama. okay?"
Yes, my little man, the moon will watch over you while you're sleeping.

Tamlin's new trick

Tam has grown a bit lately and he can now reach the light switches around the house. He loves turning the lights on and off now.

He calls it a trick.

He likes to turn them off at inopportune times...like in the middle of changing Jude's diaper or while we're walking up the stairs or any other time when our hands are otherwise occupied.

The boys' 1st movie

I did it...
I was finally brave enough to venture to the movie theater with both the boys to see a movie that I thought we all would enjoy. What prompted this? Well, I saw that my favorite furry monsters, the Muppets, were releasing a new movie. I heart the Muppets. I loved the early movies of theirs and thought this would also be a hit. I checked out the reviews and saw nothing that I would object letting my little ones watch.

I then checked to see when there was a local showing of The Muppets at a matanae time that wasn't during Tam's nap time. (This is no small feat). I stumbled onto a local theater that provides mom showings of movies. This means that once a week around 10am, they show a kids movie with the lights only dimmed and the sound not as loud. Mom's are encouraged to come to this showing and wee ones running around is expected to occur. Excellent. I packed the diaper bag, bundled up the kiddos, dropped Brian and work, and headed out on the new adventure.

How did it go? Here's a hint... we started the movie with about 2 dozen people in our theater room and we ended with about 8 (3 of these were us). Tamlin did pretty good for trying to sit still and pay attention to a 2 hour movie. He sat in his booster seat and ate his popcorn for about half of the movie. Then, he got squirrelly and had to get up and talk / play / dance with the other kids in the room. Jude watched the movie from my lap for a bit, then conked out (it was his early nap time.)

When asked afterwards if he liked the movie adventure, Tamlin said "Oh yeah" . . . but he really couldn't tell you much about it except there was a frog in it.
Cute.

Shoppin = done / Crafts to do

Black Friday...Lots of sales for the kick off of the Christmas shopping season. This year with dealing with 2 small kids, I totally opted to the majority of my shopping on-line instead of at brick and mortar stores. This saved me a ton of headaches and tantrums (Tam's and mine). At this point I am pretty sure that I am 85% done.

Now I just have to wait for them to arrive on my doorstep then wrap them.

Oh...and I still have all the crafts I want to do to finish...sometime between now and Christmas eve.

Happy Shopping!

Hypothetically Speaking

It a couple of quiet moments during our decorating the house for Christmas excitement, Brian and I shared the following conversation ...

Me: If it ever came down to it, I would replace our awesome pre-lit with white LCD lights Christmas tree with a cool pink tree.

Brian: What?!

Me: You know, one of those aluminum colored trees, in pink.

Brian: What?! Really, Pink?!

Me: Yeah...Kinda retro

Brian: Could we compromise with a purple tree? A dark purple tree?

Me: Maybe. What about red, bright Christmas red?

Me: Ooohhh...Silver. What about a silver tree?

Brian: I could live with silver

Me: There we go, are next artificial tree will be a silver tree. Awesome.

Brian: Aren't you glad we discussed this now for future reference! Good to know we have at least one more hypothetical decision made!

I'm totally excited for this silver tree that we may someday own in the future :-)