October 08

--in october we finally started getting some cooler weather…granted one day we’re wearing layers and the next we’re wearing shorts. i love the crisp cool air of fall, so i’d prefer it to just stay around 60.
--grandma, grandpa, and devlin came to visit the first weekend of october. we went a place called “hunt club farms.” we played in the petting zoo, rode some rides, aidan jumped in the moon-walk, and we went on a hayride. the kids really loved it, and the grandparents loved seeing them having fun. we also went to see “sesame street live.” they were doing shows for military families for free on base. i thought aidan would like it the most, and sierra might be freaked out. aidan did love it, but sierra really got into it. she didn’t know what the creatures on stage were, but she thought they were great! she was dancing and laughing, and couldn’t take her eyes off of them. really fun!
--we had a dentist appointment this month too. it was aidan’s third, and sierra’s first. she screamed her head off when we laid her back in the chair. it was a couple weeks after her visit with the doctor, and the last time she was put in that position she got four shots…so needless to say, she fought us and screamed, thinking she was getting more shots. poor thing.

--we had a great time on halloween…except for billy being sick. so i got the kids all done up and we took a trek around the neighborhood. both of the kiddos racked up in the candy department. (i had to take out all the milk duds first thing, cause everyone knows they’re bad for you, right, but just happen to be my favorite…so i had to be the good mommy and consume all the really bad milk duds!) anyhow, sierra was the cutest little mouse EVER! she charmed tons of candy out of our neighbors…she ended up with more candy than aidan, i think. she thought it was tons of fun grabbing candy out of everyone’s bowls. aidan was the too-cool buzz lightyear. we opted for the cheaper suit from target (with the french pronunciation) rather than the disney store, which had real lights and wings, and i think even a helmet. anyhow, instead i made aidan some wings out of cardboard and clothes hangars. he didn’t know the difference, and even thought they were cooler cause mommy made them. he was a proud buzz, and told everyone who he was. last year aidan freaked out anytime someone was wearing a mask. he didn’t do that this year. he’d look carefully to make sure it was really not a monster, and then he was okay. he did get scared one time though. one guy had his head in a big pumpkin and was sitting on the porch swing like a stuffed scarecrow. the bowl of candy was next to him. aidan went up to get his candy and when he reached into the bowl, the guy moved his hand toward aidan. aidan jumped like crazy! even though it scared him, i couldn’t help but laugh. he skipped candy at that house, because he never got a piece when he got scared, and he wouldn’t go back. even days later when we were walking past that house, he was still trying to figure out why that man had scared him. i tried to explain that that’s part of what halloween is…being scary.

--sierra is a total mimic. she tries to say anything she hears, she’s really trying to communicate now. she understands EVERYTHING we say to her, it’s just up to her whether or not she cooperates with our wishes. she’s all over the place. she’s climbing on tabletops, up bookshelves, everywhere. she doesn’t do it just to do it (which is good), she does it to get something up there…which means we have to watch what we leave lying around. she goes after the bowl of halloween candy on the dining room table, daddy’s keys on the kitchen table, mommy’s blinking clock on the entertainment center, it’s always something. she falls constantly, just running around the house, though rarely cries about it. once at volleyball, she wiped out in front of some people. they all jumped and i could hear the intake of breath. i just watched her get up and move on, and they looked at me, like “wow…she’s tough.” i said, “yeah, she gets tackled by her brother at last fifty time a day, so unless she’s going to fall off a table or down the stairs or something, i don’t really worry about it.” she even climbed out of her crib one morning and dropped down to the floor. normally in the mornings, she wakes up and sings, or talks to aidan, or plays with her babies…she rarely cries. so when i hear a big thud and a scream, i of course go running. she’s on her hands and knees screaming at the carpet. i think she was more scared than hurt, because she was fine as soon as i scooped her up.
--she knows lots of her body parts now. she can point out her eyes, nose, ears, hair, toes, hands, belly button, and when someone says “potty,” she either runs to the potty or pulls on her diaper.
--her latest vocabulary additions include:
* a growl or a quack = any animal sound…bark, ribbit, roar, whatever
* “opp” = up
* “daw” = dog
* “hot” = hot
* “hat” = hat
* “nana” = almost any food…used to be banana, but now it’s just FOOD!
* “opp-ee” = apple
* “ah- may” = amen
* “ah-dah” = all done
* “chew” = shoe
* “ehh-rah” = sierra

--aidan is a talker as well. he must tell me EVERY SINGLE thought that enters his head. i hear, “mom-meeeeeee, …..” ALL DAY LONG. he’s either telling me some random thought, telling me what crazy thing sierra is doing, telling me what i’m supposed to say back to him (“say, ‘good job, aidan!’”), or arguing with me. seems i’m constantly defending my decisions with him. i’m working on different approaches to the arguing and fibbing…we’ll see what works. cause he’s really such a good boy! :)
--some of the things aidan says these days are pretty funny. i can tell he hears a phrase somewhere, and tries it out. some of them are used in the complete wrong places, and some are just impolite. some examples:
* “i’m a little nervous” (going to take a bath)
* “actually” and “otherwise” (used in the wrong context)
* “we’ll never make it” (going down to breakfast)
* “penis breath” (heard it on E.T. (which is one of his new favorite movies) and never said it again)
* “we don’t live on earth. earth is in space. you’re funny, mommy!” (i’ve got nothing to say to that one…it’s just cute, cause that is a hard concept to grasp.)
--he’s super excited about starting school next semester. i’ve been doing lots of research on the pre-schools around here, and we just sent in his registration for january . we’ve been telling him that he can start when he’s four, and he tells everyone that he’s “going to school when i’m four...in january.” i wanted to keep him close as long as possible, but he wants to go to school, and i think it’ll be some good exposure for him. we enrolled him in holy spirit catholic pre-school (the three-year-old class) for three half days a week from january through may. then he’ll do five half days in the four-year-old class starting next september…and be ready for (half day) kindergarten the next year.
--they grow up waaaaaayy to fast!

Sept 2008

--we had a few visitors in setpember. grammy and poppy came for several days. their visit overlapped with our friends mike and leslie, who came down for the winefest. we had a great (and hot) time at the winefest again this time. the kids came with us and played well. also, in september, i started my fall volleyball season. i play every monday night in a women’s league. we’re really good, and are in first place again this season.

--aidan is still my good boy, but has switched from my “do whatever mommy says” baby boy to a very argumentative little boy. he argues with me a lot, stops listening, acts like he’s deaf, and if he doesn’t get his way he becomes a rag doll…either that or he kicks and screams. he has also started fibbing a little, exaggerating a lot, and playing dumb when i ask him what happened or what he did. i suppose it’s what’s called “age appropriate,” and it's not all the time, however it’s horribly frustrating. i find myself trying to convince him to obey, and that doesn’t work, and that just makes me even more frustrated. vicious cycle, i suppose…and hopefully just a phase he’ll outgrow shortly. i mean, i can’t realistically believe he’ll never argue or lie or disobey me once he’s outgrown it, but at least maybe he’ll start listening to me a bit more.
--he’s also become a little tattle-tail. “sierra ripped it.” “sierra is going up the stairs.” “sierra is taking off her shirt.” “sierra's hands are in the potty.” “sierra is standing on the table.” granted, those are (mostly) things i need to be aware of. however he also tells me when she pulled his hair, or took his toy, or whatever. it’s kinda funny most of the time...though sometimes it sends me running!
--he’s now telling me these days that he wants a son named aidan. a son AND a brother named aidan. i told him if he has a brother one day, he won’t be named aidan, but one day when he’s grown up he can name his son that. “mommy, when i am a fro-nup, i can? i can’t wait.”
--he told me about one of his dreams. he said that god turned him into a butterfly. i said that sounded nice, but he said, “but i don’t want to be a butterfly. i just want to stay a boy.” how sweet.
--sierra had her 15month checkup. she got several shots, which she absolutely hated. she screamed bloody murder, and tried to get away. the nurse said she’s really strong…which i already knew. her height is 32” (85th percentile) and her weight is 21#15oz (back up to 40th percentile.)

--she helps me get her undressed, and sometimes does it herself. i’ll come in her room in the morning, and she has her shirt and/or pants halfway off, or all the way off. once she even got her diaper off! she has continued getting up on everything. she climbs on tables and she climbs up and slides down the slide. she’s started sniffing…flowers and feet (when prompted). she then says, “ahhh…see-eee!” which means, “aw, stinky!”
--she has her own language these days. a bunch of babbles, that must mean something to her. it’s really cute. i remember aidan going through that, though i think it happened later than 16months. some of her current sayings include:
* “day-do” = thank you
* “day-dee” or “a-dee” = aidan
* “ha-dough” = hello
* “pee-boo” = peek-a-boo
* “boo!” = boo!
* “ahh…see-ee!” = aw, stinky!
* “ya-you” = i love you
* “uh-hhh” = up (with arms held up)
* “eeez!” = cheese (with the squishy-face for the camera)
* “chew” = shoe

August 08

--paragraph one: sierra is a total ham! (i wonder who she got that from???) see exhibits A through F:

--more about sierra…she LOVES shoes. she calls them “ooosh,” and brings them to me when she finds some, brings me the one that fell off, goes to get them when i tell her to go get her shoes. she even tries to wear other people’s shoes. she put on aidan’s shoes and got pretty good getting around in them.

--she is now mommy's little helper. she likes to help me in the kitchen or doing laundry. she carries things for me, and she runs to get her corn-popper to vacuum when i vacuum.
--she’s pretty good at following directions, assuming she wants to obey. she knows exactly what i’m saying, though she may or may not comply. she runs to the door when i say “let’s go” or “wanna go?” she gets her shoes when i ask, and will “put that back” (for the most part) when i tell her to. however, she doesn’t always like to “get down” when i ask. she will slyly look at me, and back and forth between me and whatever she’s trying to climb on. she runs to her chair, and even starts chomping when i ask if she wants to eat. she heads for the stairs and goes to the bathroom when i tell her that it’s bathtime. (i'm right behind her on the stairs, in case anyone's worried...) she waves bye-bye and blows kisses when it’s “time for night-night.” she stops wacking what she’s hitting when i tell her “gentle” and will pet my arm, aidan, herself, the babydoll, whatever. and she knows where her eyes and nose and ears are. of course she prefers to poke or grab mine over hers though.
--her latest vocabulary advances include:
* “ahh-dee” = aidan (progress from “ahh-eee”)
* “uh-oh” = uh-oh (progress from “uh-uh”)
* “if” = fish
* “ack” = quack

* "baw" = ball
* “a-nana” = banana

* "mum-mee" = mommy
* “wa-zum?” = want some?
* “ah-jiz!” = there she is!
* “uh-uh-uh-uhhhh” = nah-uh-uh-uh (and wags her finger at me)
--when she hears the door, she runs to it and yells “da-da!!” billy’s been working on the staircase a lot lately, and one day we came home and i put something on the stairs for billy. sierra pointed to the steps and said, “da-da!!” she’s been a bit clingy lately too. she passed the snuggly baby stage and went into the “i have too much energy and too much to explore to sit still” stage. she’s still in that stage to some degree, but she also likes to sit still and read a book, play with blocks, or just sit in my lap. and she still likes to do whatever it is that aidan does. she follows him around and tries to copy him.

--aidan has been playing a lot of sports lately. we went miniature golfing with our friends mike and kristin. aidan wasn’t quite as good as last time (no holes in one) or as crazy as last time (no balls lost). nearly every day we have to play at least one sport in the backyard. he’s getting really good at several. he now has good form in basketball and makes at least half of his shots…granted they’re on his small goal, and he has his mark that he stands on (better to have him stand still in a spot to work on form,) but he’s doing great! he’s also catching and throwing a football…has a pretty good spiral too! of course, he has to wear his jets helmet whenever he plays football, and runs all over the place. we play catch, and he’s getting good with his glove. he can also hit off a pitch (or tee, though his tee is now too short for him.) and we’ve been working on his throwing form too. his new favorite movie (that we can see on demand) is everyone’s hero about babe ruth’s bat, darlin'. he got some cute sayings from the movie, and watches it in full garb (hat and glove)!!

--we’ve been working on pre-reading and pre-writing skills. he knows the alphabet song, though he’ll mess up occasionally, and i don’t think he ever got “l-m-n-o-p” just right anyway. he also knows 20 of the letters by sight, and can tell me words that start with the letter for many of them. he also knows several of what are called “sight words” (words that don’t really follow the rules, and new readers just have to memorize them.) we have a dvd of them. he knew 4 of about 20 by the end of the dvd, and 9 the next day, before we even watched the show! he can also recognize his numbers, though 7 and 9 give him trouble. i have him read me the digital clock to practice. i also got him some workbooks to work on tracing lines and following a path with his pencil. he concentrates really hard, and gets excited (and stickers) when he does well.

--we went to the beach a couple times this month. one time was with our friends mariah, sameer and their kids (asha and yogi), and carne. aidan and asha had a great time in the sand, sitting in the water, running from the water, and playing in the waves. sierra is fearless at the beach. she goes straight for the water. aidan was always a sand baby, though he’s getting used to the water now that we go often.

--aidan’s latest phrases include:
* “can i watch aidan’s show about animals?” (every morning/afternoon of every day!)
* “i want to go to ella’s house. ella is my best friend.”
* “asha is my girlfriend.”
* “i want a brother.” (daily for about a few weeks after our friend and (not-for-long) neighbor sandra had gabriel. still says it though not contstantly. i told him to ask daddy, and maybe god will give us a brother or sister sometime next year…)
* “i keep my eye on the ball!” (from everyone’s hero)
* “i just keep swinging!” (from everyone’s hero)
* “rock on!” (goes with a high-five when he does something “awesome!”)
* “cut it out, mommy!” (from everyone’s hero…minus the mommy part)
* “this is no time to panic!” (from toy story)
* “this is darlin’, cause i’m babe ruth.” (playing baseball after everyone’s hero)
--we had a few friends travel down from jersey to visit. mike and kristin came down for the weekend. we went to the beach and played miniature golf. at the beach, i actually ran into a former college volleyball teammate that was in a beach volleyball tournament the day we were on the beach. billy’s friends rob and justin came down for labor day weekend. we had a good time with them, and had a pre-labor day bbq while they were in town.
--i went to a brad paisley (country singer…for you non-fans) with my friend shadra. we had great seats, and she had some friends who got us vip passes. one of them was the nephew of brad paisley’s stage manager. so we got to go on the tour bus, and backstage and see all the equipment. it was bad scheduling that we didn’t get to see brad himself after the concert. they had a two week break from touring starting after the va beach concert, so he took off right after the show. usually he’d be up for hanging out…oh well. still the concert was awesome, and we had a great time!

--billy knows where his next job will be. we were told he'd have to do a tour in either iraq or afghanistan before he could get a ship or another shore billet. however that is not the case. he will be going to the u.s.s. cook (http://www.cook.navy.mil/) next summer, as the SUPPO (supply officer). he leaves acu-2 in april, and has several weeks of schools, and then reports to the ship in june. the ship is out of norfolk so we don't have to move, though his commute will be a bit more. and they do deploy a lot, so he'll be gone several months of the year, but at least he's not in the sand with a weapon!! (that's my take, anyhow...)

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!