Mixing Things Up and Catching Up

So between the kids not sleeping well recently and doing some work on the house - I haven't been keeping up with the blog. Maybe I can catch things up here.

Titus has figured out personal pronouns and refers to himself more as I or me than "Titus". He has also figured out how to turn the key in the truck all the way to start the truck. Luckily he can't reach the brakes and therefore cannot put the truck in gear. He is becoming more competitive with Isabele as she is getting more and more mobile. He can draw circles - far from perfect, but they are more or less round and he finishes them at the same place he started them. When he goes to bed at night he has to have his flannel blanket folded up into a square, they way I fold them after they have been washed - then he sleeps on it like a pillow.

Isabele insists on standing as much as possible. She moves her feet when she's standing, but hasn't really started walking around objects while holding on yet. She is very talkative, though nothing means much. She drinks out of a cup quite well. She has an opinion about absolutely everything and gets very frustrated when those around her cannot figure out what she wants. After a week of waking me up and keeping me awake at night more than she did as a newborn, she gone to only waking up once a night to nurse!!

Brian and I have now been married 10 years, and true to us, we didn't do any of the traditional anniversary things - instead we decided to do a little revamping of our house (the pictures from the previous post). We now have a dining room!! and it is wonderful! We have a long way to go to get everything completely finished, but we have winter coming all too quickly and will need to have something to do when we can't spend all day outside.

That's the last month in a nutshell. Hopefully I'll do a little better with the upkeep of the blog since the major construction is complete inside - now it's just finish work.

House changes

View from living room through dining room to kitchen and "hallway" to the bedrooms and bathroom.

Play area and leather rocking chair at the back of the house off the kitchen.

Flowers Titus and I picked from the garden today - on the dining room table.

Another view of the dining room - I like the sunshine on the table.

Here's the dining room from the living room arch and then on into the kitchen.

Pretending

So, Titus started pretending, really pretending, yesterday. He got Brian's work computer, took it out to the garage, where Brian was putzing, and told him that he needed to get the truck keys and go to the airport to do "wats and wats of work". Brian humored him and they got in the truck and went to the grocery to pick up some random thing and a sucker.

Today, Titus found a roll-around suitcase in the closet and, once again, decided he needed to go to work. Then, he decided that the suitcase wasn't enough, he also needed a backpack. Brian fashioned a "backpack" out of a random bag, also in the closet, and off he went to "work".

What will be the next topic of pretend?

getting so big

My little girl is getting so big. I think she only started crawling a couple weeks ago, and now I find her standing a lot. This morning she was standing in her crib when I went to get her up. Before I know it, she'll be walking. I'm so ready for that, and not at the same time.

HMMM...

Brian and I decided to go to the YMCA and take advantage of the babysitting. I'm not a big fan of the gym, as is pretty well known, but I've put off exercising for long enough. I don't have any excuses left. So, off we went. We dropped Titus and Isabele off in the "kids center" and then we went to the cardio room. The machines all have TV's which is pretty neat, especially since they have a channel that shows the "kids center". Titus spent most of the 15 minutes wandering around watching the other kids. Isabele apparently never stopped crying from when I handed her to the lady who held her the whole time. So, 15 minutes in, I get paged overhead "Lydia Hoover please come to the Kids Center". As soon as I picked Isabele up, she stopped crying. Titus said, "Go see Daddy". He actually wasn't all that interested in leaving. I think he found the place interesting. Isabele wasn't going to have anything to do with being left again, so off we went.
We stopped in the cardio room so Titus could say bye to Daddy. On the way outside, Titus walked smack into the door to the cardio room = tears and crying. As I'm leading crying Titus out to the bike to ride home, I bonk Isabele's head on the exterior door = more tears. I think most of her crying was that Titus was crying and not that she was actually hurt. By the time I got them loaded into the bike, it started sprinkling. Titus was now crying just because he could. He stopped about a minute later when it really started to rain. By the time we got home, everyone had wet hair and faces. No one melted, as we are not made of sugar :-).
I made mini ice cream cones for Titus and Isabele and we sat on the porch, eating cones while it rained.
Hopefully the next attempt at dropping the kids off so I can exercise for 30 minutes will be a bit more sucessful. Maybe I'll come armed with Isabele's blanket and some toys and set her up in a little spot where she can see Titus.

I'm as tough as he is.

Titus is 21 months old in this picture. He started doing pull-ups on the pegs at my parents house long before this picture was taken. I think a picture exists somewhere on one of my brothers' IPhones, but I can't find it on my computer.

At this point he could do 95% of the pull-up by himself - his dad was only touching him in case he slipped.

Miss Isabele at 9 1/2 months old.

I think Titus must have been about the same age when one his uncles decided he should start doing pull-ups. She's got a ways to go, but she did hold on.

Some sweet pictures

I know I'm cute. Isabele at 9 1/2 months old.

Titus and Isabele in the tub. I'm sure one day they will not like that this picture exists, but I like it, so they loose.

Sweet boy. Titus at 2 1/2 years old.