Sleep? Please!!

Isabele is so very different from Titus. All in all, I think this is a good thing - except in the area of sleeping. At 11 months, little Miss Isabele still isn't sleeping all night. Usually she's up at least twice, and 3 or 4 times isn't unheard of. She has been sleeping in a "pack-n-play" size crib since she moved into Titus' room months ago. It fit in the room better than the full size crib, and worked fine in my book. Today, I dug the full size crib out of the basement storage closet and put it together. Then I took the 2 kids and off we went to Wal-Mart for a mattress (Titus is using his crib mattress in his toddler bed that Brian built for him). I have high hopes that maybe Isabele will start sleeping for longer periods at night, though I'm not holding my breath.

The big crib is a little tight in their room, but very soon we will finish all of the rearranging of rooms and walls in the house and they will get another 3 1/2 feet added to their room, so the full size crib will not look so squished.

Marshmallows or Mushrooms

I bought some hot chocolate mix with the mini-marshmallows the other day. I made some for Titus, a treat when Brian brings me a mocha (decaf for Isabele) on his way home from work. Titus has had marshmallows only once or twice, and never in hot chocolate before. He's also had mushrooms once or twice. Neither are a staple in our house. So, he's sitting, quite happy with his hot chocolate at the table with Brian and I, when he says something about mushrooms. Brian asked him what he said and he repeated himself "I want more mushrooms in my hot chocolate." Hmmm. What? Mushrooms in your hot chocolate? Oh, you mean marshmallows in your hot chocolate. "Titus, can you say 'marshmallow'?" "Marshmallow". Okay - well, it's not that he can't say marshmallow, he just has the words a bit mixed up. I thought it was cute and decided not to push to hard to correct him. He'll correct himself soon enough, but until then ... we have mushrooms in the hot chocolate at our house.

Dirty kids and a couple of misc pictures

This picture didn't turn out as good as I would have liked. I made cornbread the other day and Titus helped me, sort of. I got the batter into the pans and Titus took the bowl. Next thing I know, he's been licking the bowl, with his tongue. He had cornbread batter from the crown of his head all the way to his chin and ear to ear. He nicely posed for pictures before I washed his hair in the sink.


Isabele is dancing to the music here. She was really moving.










Titus doesn't like noise. He found that the "headset" (supposed to be used when shooting) makes things much quieter. He thinks that it's a headset for flying. Here he's watching Brian use the router to make space in the new closet for the wiring for the lights in the basement stairwell.





The kids had to go to a meeting at work with me. They are always pretty good. This meeting was at 2PM and they didn't get a nap before hand. At the very end of the meeting Titus found my purse, and in it my lipstick. I knew what he was doing and frankly, didn't care. He was quite intent on putting on his lip. He even used both colors twice. He was so proud of himself, I didn't take it off. When we got in the car, he wanted to go to Bia's. He was asleep in about 2 minutes, slept in the car at my mom's for about 10 minutes, didn't wake up when we got home and I went in and got the camera and took pictures of him. He can be so sweet.













Isabele covered in dirt and sand stuck on by snot and goo. Yuck! How can she still be so cute?

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.