Everybody Put Your Hands Up!!

So, funny story...we have been using our ITunes more lately, and have got a nice computer file now of songs we have either purchased or downloaded onto our computer. We are enjoying all of the music we have always loved, and trying to keep up with current music a bit, too. Aaron is continually adding music to the collection, and we are almost exclusively using our computer to play music these days. My, how times do change!

And, with us both having music backgrounds, we play music a lot around here. One thing that we do almost every day is to play a soundtrack of restful songs before bedtime. This used to be a MANDATORY part of every sleeping event...every single nap and bedtime were preceeded by the "sleepy time music". Even while traveling. But now that both kids are getting older, we aren't needing/using such a formal routine for bedtime. And in the days, Ben doesn't nap anymore, and Molly loves to nap so much that she doesn't need the slightest bit of encouragement to get ready to rest...most days she tells me when she wants to go "nigh nigh" and I follow her lead! But still, we play this music a lot.

Now for the "funny" part of the story...recently, I noticed a selection on the ITunes page that labeled "Top 25 Most Played". I was intrigued!

Here was my chance, in one click, to assess our actual listening habits...were we mostly listening to cool, fun music that would show how hip we really are? Were we listening to kids songs WAY too much? What were our top 25 songs of all time?

The results are in:


1 through 24 are sleepy time songs.


And number 25: "Party in the USA" by Miley Cirus.

Uhhh...I don't know what this makes us...but I'm pretty sure the words hip and cool should be eliminated:)

But, I will say the kids do love when Miley sings "Everybody put your hands up! They're playing my song!" Here is a great pic of them rocking out with Dad!

"My Ben!"

Sorry I've been a bad blogger lately. Still need to download a ton of new pics. When that happens, I'll catch you up:)

But in the meantime, here's a cute story I wanted to share.

First of all, let me say that Ben and Molly have been SO SO CUTE and sweet together lately. LOTS of playing together and making up games for each other. Snuggling and singing together, and just generally enjoying each other's company.

It has gotten even cuter in the recent past, because Molly has started to refer to Ben as "my Ben".

So I'll regularly hear: "I need my Ben!". "Where my Ben go, Mama?" "This train is for my Ben."

When she wakes up from a nap, if she doesn't see where is his, she will always ask "Where is my Ben, Mama?"

Such a wonderful time with these two these days!

Catch the Rosie Stick...

Gotta love kids in matching froggy boots!

So, I just had to take a moment to write about a game that my kids have been playing. It all started with a sucker, or rather, the stick that was left over once a sucker had been completely sucked.

The kids finished some suckers a few weeks ago, and out of the blue, Ben asked Molly, "Hey Molly, do you want to play 'Catch the Rosie Stick'?"

Because she is two, and pretty much likes any game that involved playing with Ben, she replied with an enthusiastic "Yes!".

Ben then threw the stick across the living room floor, and instructed her to hurry and go catch it. She happily took off, running for the stick, and grabbed it and brought it back to Ben. Both kids were laughing hysterically the whole time. Once she returned it to him, he threw it again, and yelled for her to "catch the rosie stick" again. This went on for almost 10 min.

And this game has STUCK! They both seem to love it, and they play it every time they find themselves with a random stick. After finishing a sucker...after finding a nice-sized twig on a walk...after being given a tongue depressor at the doctor's office...you name it!

And yes, I totally get that, essentially, my 4-yr-old is playing "fetch" with my 2-yr-old, as if she were his little puppy. But they love it, and really, aren't 2-yr-olds a little like puppies from time to time?

And I quote...Ben

Here are some of my favorite Ben quotes from the past few months:

-"Whole wide world" is coming out "Whole white world"

-"classmates" is "classNates"

-He knows a bit about my work...he knows that I give "therapy" to kids, but he doesn't really know what it means. Last week, he told me this story about his own pretend therapy session: "Mom, Jayden, from my therapy session put his mouth on the model train! The electricity shot him and then he threw up!"
Sounds like a pretty rough speech-langague therapy session if you ask me:)

-I am delighted to share this story...he recently found a toy water gun, and pretended to shoot me. However, I have apparently so protected him from any type of violent tv or cartoons that he doesn't seem to actually know what sound a gun makes! Instead of shouting something like "pow" or "bam" as he shot the gun at me, he instead shouted "gun shoot...gun shoot...gun shoot" :)

-And finally, my new favorite. I got this request last week:
"Mom, when I sit on the couch and eat a snack and watch tv, it makes me think of Jesus. So could, I please sit on the couch with a cookie and watch a show?"
LOL! Who knew...being a couch potato is actually just another way to know Jesus! Woohoo!! Time for me to go to my new church!

And I quote...Molly

Molly's language has been exploding lately. We still get a few two-word sentences here and there, but generally, we are somewhere in the 5-word range, I think.

Here are some fun recent examples: (though as I type these, I realize this list is already dated! These were from Jan, and she is already talking so much more than this!)

-When playing trains with Ben, she insisted, "I can do it Ben!!" wanting to run the electric train without help. Then, when he took a turn, she instructed "Do faster Ben!" Apparently he wasn't feeling the need for speed as much as she was:)

-I heard her telling him to "scoot over!!" yesterday.

-In the morning, she will often sweetly ask, "Jammies off please" when she wants help. But lately that has been replaced with "Jammies off. Do it by self!" Then, when she's ready to take off the pull-up diaper that she slept in, "Bye bye yucky diaper!".

-In fact, she has been wanting to do lots of things independently lately. And when she wants to let me know that she doesn't need help, she will insist "Me by self!" or "I by self!!". And on a side note, she has been doing great with pulling her own pants and undies on and off, mostly independently. And she is great with socks and shoes.

-When she says upside-down, it comes out like "up-uh-side-down."

-When she says lay down, it comes out like "lown down".

-She loves to hide and help us guess where she is by asking "Where Molly go? Under blanket!"

-She likes to try to sing the Bob the Builder theme song, but it comes out like this: Boh du builder...wees can do it!! Boh du builder...wees can do it!".

I will try to get a better, more current list soon.

Birthday Girl!!

On February 23, 2010, Little Miss Molly-Robin Moose Mouse turned 2!!!


(Sorry this pic is a little old...this was from Christmas, after she had just finished a yummy Christmas cookie)

Thoughts on my tiny baby turning 2:

It does seem that she has been here forever, and also that there is no way she could be 2 yet. With Ben, I remember feeling that he was definitely ready for 2, and far from a 1-yr-old by his birthday, but with Molly, not so much. I have to admit that a big part of it is just size. I don't remember the exact pound differences, but I know that Ben had been well into 2T sizes and was wearing quite a few 3T clothes by the time he turned 2. He was always between the 75th and 90th %tile. But Molly, on the other hand, has just, within the past few weeks, starting wearing 2T clothes about half of the time...she is still in quite a few 18-mo outfits. So she is honestly quite a bit smaller, which makes it hard to adjust to her being 2 already.

Personality-wise, I would say that we are seeing a hint of the "terrible twos" here and there, but generally, she is still a very kind-hearted, good-natured, pleasant person. When she gets mad, she screeches louder than she used to, but she is still quite slow to anger, and very quickly redirected to try something else or to compromise.

She still LOVES her mama!!!! I have to admit, now that she is older and more independent, it is not overwhelming at all...no more complaints of the "monkey-vest" from this mama. In fact, it is just lovely to be so sweetly and so completely adored by a little one.
But also, she has finally opened up her little heart completely to Ben and Daddy, and it is unbelievably beautiful to see her loving on Daddy, or snuggling with Ben. She really is delightful when she shares her love.

She is REALLY into books and puzzles lately. And I will admit that I am enjoying every minute of it. Ben at this age was deeply into trains and anything with wheels that you could drive or push. Fun for him...but not so thrilling for me. So I am really enjoying and trying to savor this period of puzzle play and book-reading. And it is delightful to see how good she is. She will sit and try so hard for a good long time on very tricky puzzles.

She has been singing more and more lately, and seems to finally be more sure of how to get attention from random people, even with her boisterous brother in the room too. And her language continues to explode. I have a whole list of quotes that I have been meaning to blog, and even when I get around to writing them all, the list will already be out of date because she has been increasing her vocabulary and sentence-length daily.

She is still sleeping well, though we haven't gotten rid of the pacifiers yet ("pie pies", as she still calls them). My plan was to do it by 2, but these last few weeks have been unusual with out of town trips and visitors and illnesses, so it hasn't happened. Hopefully I will cross that bridge soon.

Her sweet, soft curls have stuck around. Her hair is so completely pretty sometimes! I'm not trying to be vain, but her hair really is stunning sometimes. We haven't had to trim it yet, and I a little afraid that if we do, we will loose the curls, so for now I am just enjoying her sweet curls.

And it continues to be SO AWESOME that she potty-trained so long ago. At this point, it has been so long since I had to change a poopy diaper on one of my kids that I barely remember how! It is so great to be generally free of a diaper bag. I keep a spare change of clothes for her in the back of the car, just in case, but never have to use it. SO great!

Basically, life is good and she is a delightful little person and a blessing to us. It is honestly wonderful to have these 2 children, and things continue to get easier and more fun all the time, now that the "baby" is 2.

Fancy Party!

Back a few weeks ago, we got an invitation in the mail to a "Fancy Party"! It was a from a playgroup friend of Ben's. The little guy, L, asked his mom if he could host a fancy party for his friends. He insisted that they go full out...fancy clothes, fancy invites, fancy foods, fancy decorations. Thankfully, his mom is a great sport and she happily obliged.

My kids talked about it for days! They couldn't wait to weat their "Fancy" clothes. The party was a complete success. All of the kids seemed to love every minute of the fancy food, clothes and fun.

Here are some pics from our VERY "Fancy" party!