The other night at dinner, JT decided to pretend his spoon was an airplane and flew his cuban beef picadillo and rice into his mouth. Wonder where he got that idea?

Some miscellaneous additions for the week (as well as some Flip Clips)… First, Haley usually falls asleep with her binky and spits it out at some point. Sometimes it gets stuck in her swaddle blanket and rests on her nose. How does she sleep like this?

On Jim’s work days, he gets up around noon and has breakfast while the rest of us have lunch. Then he gets some quality time with both kids before their naps.

Haley is starting to enjoy her playmat. I had to break out pictures of when JT was a baby to remember how to assemble it, and finally got it to work.

She also just started to notice her mobile. I love her dangling flowers and I was so excited to see her notice them. Her eyes got really wide and she just stared for a long time.

Since she has begun to show interest in toys and movement, I started dangling a scrunchy colorful ball next to her diaper changing pad. She kicks it often and is starting to bat at it. Fun stuff.

JT still asks frequently one of three things: “smooch baby sister,” “hug baby sister,” or “hold baby sister.” This is a long clip, but I couldn’t cut it down. Here he asked to hold her in the rocking chair. At one point he does a little squeeze that looks like a wrestling move, but Haley doesn’t seem to mind and the rest is very sweet. 🙂

And finally (a good morning for flip clips – this was all filmed in a span of about twenty minutes), I caught JT reading his Opposites book. He gets most of the pages correct, from memory of course.

We have had a beautiful couple of fall days lately. We had a big windstorm so all of the leaves came off the trees, but then we had two days of dry sunshine. You could walk the neighborhood and see at least one family out making piles and taking pictures. Of course, we did too!

Dad, please can we do the leaf blower NOW?!

Tossing leaves

Getting thrown in the pile

Soft landing

Framer!

JT, Haley, and I met our friends Carrie and Emi at 3-2-1 Bounce for some morning playtime this week. On the way there, we got hit in our Mazda… that’s another story. I’ll blog about that soon. Anyway, we are all fine and so we continued on to our destination. We got there half an hour late but still had a great time.

JT and Emi

Going through an obstacle course with Mom

Thanks to Carrie for snapping this cute picture!

JT enjoyed the different inflatables, but what he really loved were the big truck toys in the toy area inside the main door. I thought, “I drove an hour and spent $6 for you to play with trucks on the floor?” But then I remembered that we were there to have a nice time. And if playing with trucks is what makes a nice time, then that’s what we would do. I did convince JT to go on one more inflatable before it closed… and then he ran back to the trucks. 🙂

I’ve started calling Haley “Haley Bean.” I don’t know why. Maybe because it rhymes with “Haley Keene,” or maybe because she is such a little bean. She is now about the same size JT was when he was a week old. Not that we’re comparing, it’s just so funny how little she is to us. She’s still wearing her newborn clothes! Meanwhile, she is working on things that other two month olds are working on. And she is very smiley!

I finally put some toys on her car seat now that she can track and see far enough away to be interested. Ever since I took the Car Safe Kids class, I am very wary of toys dangling from car seat handles, but these passed the test. They are 100% soft and are attached in one piece on a coil that wraps around the whole handle. Anyway, Haley has been having a great time looking at them and accidentally batting at them in the car before she falls asleep.

I also put Haley in the BebePod chair for the first time this week. I didn’t think she could sit there on her own or anything, but I wanted to see how she’d do. She loved it. I was cracking up watching her because she was pretty pleased with herself while she sat there, but she couldn’t keep her head up no matter how she tried. I took a couple pictures and some video, of course.

After she was tired of the chair, she played on my lap for a few minutes before I started breakfast for JT. I had to add this other clip of her goofy smile. She does this all of the time!

p.s. Yes, my daughter is wearing navy blue. Some days I just have to get a break from the pink.

I don’t love Halloween. I just don’t get it. I don’t get all excited to dress up and ask people to give me candy. I do, however, love pumpkins – patches, carving, seeds, the whole thing. Soooooo this weekend the Skagens came over and we had dinner and carved pumpkins.

Sarah, Aly, and Cole deciding what to draw

JT directing Jim: “Nose right…. there!”

Adam’s job

JT has adopted a few more household tasks lately. He enjoyed scrubbing the toilets; mostly I think this is because he loves playing in water.

Last week, Jim and I had a date day! We were planning on skiing but it was much too foggy on the lake. But we still got to ride the Harley to lunch…

…and saw a weekday matinee movie (The Social Network) where we had a lot of trouble finding seats…

…and rode home again just before the rain hit.

I have been accused of the common second-time-parent sin: not taking as many pictures of your second child. I have to argue that this is just not true… at the very least, it is hard to tell. First, I have a much better camera, so I can take fewer pictures and get one that I like. Second, JT likes to be in the pictures now so that shouldn’t count against me. And third, I did learn a lot after looking back at all of the pictures and video of JT and knowing what is great to have on film and what doesn’t really matter.

One thing I learned from JT’s video clips is that watching a baby do nothing isn’t very fun. But now that Haley is doing something (Jim said, “Oh good, she’s not just a lump after all”), we can post some video. Here she is smiling, cooing, and having a great time in her bouncy chair. I apologize in advance if it’s bumpy… JT was helping me film. 🙂

Haley got a cute new outfit from a friend in my Bible Study and she just had to wear it to church on Sunday. She also wore tights that she’s borrowing from Abby. The nursery workers noticed how adorable she was!

JT noticed too but was concerned that she was cold. And, since she was lying on a swaddle blanket, he said, “I wrap her up.” How nice, big brother!

It’s fun that JT is finally old enough to have a conversation. This first Flip Clip sounds more like a quiz than a dialogue, but that’s because it’s really hard to get an impromptu talk on film. (The names he says are Asher, Abby, Jen, Katie, Brady, and Shira. I laughed when he said “maybe Shira” because Shira leads workout, so of course she would be there!)

He has picked up some of our phrases and uses the appropriately. I have to say that it is very funny the first time you hear your child say something that you know you say yourself. Here’s a few of the ones I remember hearing him say this week:

• I’ll be right there
• Here we go
• That’s so funny
• Don’t push me
• My tummy is hungry
• Sweet dreams
• Banana in my tummy
• I pooped AND peed
• Right here (or right there, depending)
• I made a craft at church

JT has also figured out some important words that help him communicate, like:

• maybe
• sometimes
• until
• still
• almost
• after
• before
• not yet

He is still struggling to get the dog to obey him. 🙂 Slider just doesn’t hear him, or she ignores him, or she doesn’t consider him in charge – I don’t know which. He does love walking her on her leash and saying “here we go” or “let’s go,” both of which I say to her all the time.

Like many toddlers, he’s into hiding. Except he hides and then SHOUTS where he is. “I’m in the closet!” Worse, he tells you where he’s planning to hide: “I go hide in bathroom!” Last night while I was cleaning up from dinner, he camped out in the cupboard in the kitchen. Now that he can open our doors, hiding has a lot more options. (Turn your volume down – why is this one so loud?)

We are working on letters, shapes, and numbers. JT likes to write his name. He will slowly write a squiggle and say “J…..” and then make another squiggle and announce, “T!” Here he has written his name several times and is pointing to show you where on the page. 🙂