July 08

--the first week of july we were in philadelphia. our friends, mike and leslie, (finally) got married. billy was a groomsman and aidan was the ring-bearer. they were too adorable in their tuxes. aidan’s little counterpart was hannah, the (older) flower girl. they just looked too cute together. we took the kids out (from the babysitter) at the reception and let them dance. aidan had a ball dancing with hannah, and sierra didn’t need a partner! :)







--july has been a pretty normal month, not much company and not much traveling. (we do have company coming this weekend so i’ll update the blog with anything that happens and pictures afterward.)
--i got sierra a booster seat, and now she sits at the table with us. she seems to like it a lot, i think she likes being next to her favorite person, aidan, the most. also, i spent nearly three days playing musical-rooms upstairs. i put all our office stuff in billy’s office, separated the bunk beds and put aidan’s bed and dresser in sierra’s room, and put almost all of the toys upstairs in what is now the “U.S.S. Playroom.” they like sharing a room, and it sure does help to keep all the toys off the floor of the downstairs living spaces!

--sierra’s milestones for july are mostly vocabulary. she has several distinguishable words now. though she has also started the gibberish of whatever sounds she can make all jumbled together, which is too cute. her words are:
* “ma-ma” = mama
* “da-da” or “da-deeee” = daddy
* “bobby” = baby
* “uh-hhhh” (uh split into two syllables) = uh-oh
* “hi” = hi
* “ahh-boo” = peek-a-boo
* “ahh-zaah” = what’s that?
* “buh” (bull minus the l’s) = ball
* “nee-nee-nee” = no no no (she tells me that when i do something she doesn’t like, and herself when she’s doing something she’s not supposed to.)

* "shhhh" = shhhh

* "ooosh" = shoe

* "ahh-ee" = aidan

* "oh-oh" = uh-oh

* she's also started shaking her head no...and yes, though that's harder.

--sierra has started the grab-and-run lately. she takes something she isn’t supposed to have and takes off running. she also has started pulling out her hair ties/barrettes anytime she remembers they’re there. she shakes her head ‘no’ when i tell her “no.” and she scoots backwards to go down a step, sometimes starting two feet away and crawling backwards to the step. she’s also become quite a mimic. she repeats sounds she hears, trying to say what we say…even the voice inflections. she also barks at a picture of a dog, makes any other toy animal/dinosaur growl, and growls back at billy when he makes his scary-monster-noises. she really likes to copy aidan. if aidan bangs on the table with a spoon, sierra bangs her spoon on the table. if aidan runs to look out the glass door, sierra sticks her face against the glass too. if aidan (and daddy) hang a toy ring from their noses like a bull, she tries to do it too. if aidan stands up on the big popcorn tin (holding pecans) and jumps off like buzz lightyear, sierra tries to climb up on top of the tin but is quickly taken down…with aidan getting the lecture about what he “teaches” her, and sierra getting her first lessons on AVOIDING peer pressure! :)

--i gave her a little haircut the other day. her hair has grown tons the last couple months, and the longest pieces (from birth that never fell out) were looking a little scraggly. so i trimmed it into a little bob. it’ll be long again in no time, and this time thicker and neater.

--aidan’s update-ables are phrases he’s saying these days. i sent him to vacation bible study for a week. he had a good time. the first day he came back saying he learned about "Jesus and turtle life" (Jesus and eternal life.) the next day he told me that "Jesus gives me power!" how cute is that! when he can’t find something, he says, “i look anywhere,” (no matter that it’s in plain sight right where he left it…must be a man thing.) when it’s time to clean up, one of two things happens. he either tells me, “there’s no mess everywhere,” or sings the clean-up song and puts things away, saying “tah-dah” when he’s (nearly) done. he also tells me “i hear’d you” when i tell him something. i know he gets that from me, but i’m trying to teach him he isn’t supposed to say it when i tell him something once…it’s for when someone says something over and over and over (like he does a lot these days.) his favorite one week was, “paw-paw is coming saturday.” i heard that AT LEAST twice an hour for nearly a week. one concept he's having a bit of trouble with is the past. anything that has happened before, he says he "did that yesterday." i've corrected him so much that if i tell him, "no, you didn't do that yesterday," he then says, "i did it 'before'?" he's also been watching dvd's to help him learn letters/numbers/"sight words." after the second time he watched the sight word dvd, he could look at the words and knew at least eight of the 20+ words. he didn't remember them all later on, but with more practice, we'll get there.

--we had some visitors at the end of the month. aunt emily and jordan came from blacksburg for a weekend when paw-paw and joy came down from new york. we had a good time, though it was a short visit. we went to the beach one day, and aidan and sierra had a blast. sierra went straight for the water, we really had to watch her. she wasn't skittish at all. aidan is more of a sand kid, and likes to dig with daddy. sierra tried to "help" too, and ended up as a mermaid in the sand. (billy fashioned her a tail of sand...really cute.) a few days later, our friends jesse and shannon, with children, jarah and isaac, in tow came to stay on their way to their new duty station in rhode island. kids really enjoyed seeing each other again after a couple months apart. they had a "slumber party" of sorts that night...all four slept in aidan and sierra's room. shannon and i spent nearly an hour eavesdropping on their night-time conversation via the baby monitor. it was interesting listening to their kid-logic, explanations with limited language abilities...all mixed with drowsiness. i should have grabbed the computer right away and got everything they said, but we didn't think it'd last that long, and when it was all over we both tried to remember what they had said. they talked about how they're big kids. "i'm a big girl." "i'm a big boy." it was almost like they were arguing, but more like they wanted to make sure they were both heard and acknowledged. an airplane flew overhead and then they started talking about airplanes. aidan said he went on an airplane to mexico...and jarah said they had to take "a good nap" so they could go on an airplane (to california to visit shannon's parents.) they started planning a camping trip (because aidan was in a sleeping bag on the floor and it reminded jarah of camping...i don't even think aidan knows what camping is.) apparently, they're going camping and will stay in "a sleeping tent" and use a fishing pole. i can't remember how it started, but they were talking about the disney-pixar movie cars. they both love the movie, but i think jarah has the dvd. she said she has "a fast car movie." aidan said he had seen that one, but only has "a slow car movie." (we really cracked up at that point...it was like charlie brown's announcement of "i got a rock...") they talked (again) about how big they are, and that their siblings are smaller...but will grow up. aidan said he "will get big...just like daddy." jarah said "your daddy is as big as the ceiling." aidan then tried to tell her that his daddy was a grown-up, and he will be too. however, he has trouble with the "gr" sound...it's more of an "fr." (any double-consonant sound at the beginning of a word (diphthong??) gives him trouble...gr/tr comes out as fr: grammy is frammy, truck is fruck...which sometimes sounds really bad.) anyway, jarah couldn't figure out what he was saying. he said "i'll be a frow-nup." jarah said, "a donut???" aidan said, "no, frow-nup!!" and jarah said, "i cannot say that word," which ended that conversation...aidan had no response. at some point in the dialogue, jarah yelled out "goodnight!" and all was quiet for a bit, then the airplane came by and started the plane conversation. when they finally did quiet down, it was more like the pauses in between responses got longer and longer...until they finally just stopped talking. it was too cute, and i wish i had it on tape!