Intrepid Murmurings

Way too many more photos here. 

And more specifics of that last present tomorrow!  Our wooden handmade people turned out great! 

While many folks I know avoid regular sized Christmas trees with toddlers, we decide to brave it.  So far, so good!  The girls LOVED the novelty of a TREE in the HOUSE, and had a lot of fun looking at and "helping" with the decorations.  Every day, I do have at least 10 ornaments to rehang, but that seems pretty manageable! 

Emma and Delia inspecting the new tree 

Bunny Bun Bun holding the star 

Emma putting up the star (failed attempt, but worth a shot!) 

All 3 admiring the lights 

Emma loves it! 

Emma hanging decorations 

Elsie enjoying a doll ornament: "baby!" "baby!" 

Giving the "baby" a hug 

Elsie admiring a tree ornament.  

(I promise Delia was there too -- just didn't get any close ups of her this time!)  

Its my birthday!  And the kids gift to me has been an awesome afternoon nap (them not me, though I enjoyed it nonetheless), woohoo!  Emma has been Very Excited and keeps telling me 33 is kind of like 3 and a half.  Um, okay, kid!  She is mostly focusing on CAKE but I have had to inform her that we are not having cake, we are having brownie sundaes.  So much better than cake, really...  

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One of Lonnie's presents to me was all my long lost poetry, mostly written in college and grad school, which had gotten sucked away into various dead computers.  He tore apart some computers to get my stuff off the hard drives, and even printed it and put it into a binder for me!  What a sweetie!  I am so glad to have it back and am going to be posting some of them in the near future.  I keep meaning to get back to poetry writing so maybe this will inspire me.

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I am getting excited about Christmas!  By the time my bday comes around you know its getting CLOSE!  I just scored an AWESOME brio train set for cheap on craigslist for Elsie and Delia, woo hoo!  Lonnie and I (mostly Lonnie up until now) has been working on some cool handmade toys for the kids too.  My job (the painting) is what is left and I need to get on it.   I would LOVE to post pics but this is all I am allowed to post about it until after the big day...  

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Oh man, the talking is ramping up here and its just so amazing and funny to see what they will say next, and how they interact and copy or build on each others speech.  Delia pretty much echos everything we say, and is starting to narrate what she does whenever she knows the word.  I REALLY need to start writing this stuff down because its really funny sometimes, but I always forget by the time I sit down to blog at night.  

One thing she gets Very Excited about is ice cream (at this age Emma didn't even know what ice cream WAS!), which she calls "cone!"because Emma always talks about ice cream CONES (even though we don't always eat it that way).  Today I was busy with something in the kitchen and had left the freezer door open and she stood there peering in and hollering CONE! CONE! CONE!  I think she was probably sad to realize what I was getting for her right then was frozen peas...  

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Elsie is also talking more and more, in her sweet little chirpy Elsie voice (I think its a bit higher and she uses more inflection than D), and one thing she is always saying is "read!" "read!" Pretty much any time she sees Lonnie after he has been gone or working, which is pretty cute.  She is really into books and reading and can sit for a long time looking at books.  

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Have I mentioned how freaking much I love Emma's preschool? She loves it too and is doing really great there.  I am sad we will be on holiday break for a few weeks after this Thursday! It is literally 3 minutes from our house (driving), and it turns out they are modeled after the Reggio Emilia approach, something that I learned about in grad school and always thought sounded fabulous.  It is just the right size, and I love that its such a fun, happy place and has such an awesome community that we are now able to be a part of.  I really want to start hanging out with folks there more (doing some playdates and making some new "mom friends", ha ha) but its just hard since I am always running late AND chasing after two toddlers when I want to be schmoozing with the other grownups.  Ah well.  I am taking all three kids to a family potluck there on Friday by myself, we'll see how it goes and if I get to talk to anyone!  I know the girls will have tons of fun, in any case...  

Oh, blog, after such lovin' last month I am feeling bad about my neglect!  Alas.  It is the holiday season and all my spare moments have been filled by (online) shopping and gift brainstorming, tree and decoration wrangling and family event planning, among other things.  Tomorrow we are hosting a crowd of extended family for a casual holiday get-together, and I'm sure it will be lots of fun.  We'll see if the floor gets cleaned or the pile o mail filed(hidden), but there WILL be yummy food, at least! 

Elsie and Delia are talking up a STORM, holy moly.  I love this stage, but also am so sad to see babydom go.  It is insane how fast they can pick up language though.  I think often one will hear the other say something (and see our response) and then give it a go themselves.  Which is the same as most devlelpomental things (sitting, crawling, walking, cup throwing), I've noticed.  They are always right on each others heels with this stuff.

Here are a few pics from last week to tide you over until I get a proper post up:

  Elsie exploring the utensil drawer

   Delia coloring  Emma being goofy Me, Emma and Elsie