Tuesday, January 12, 2010

New Shoes Not a Walk in the Park

While much of the country has been freezing, we've had some pretty mild weather. It's mostly been in the high 40's and raining a lot.

I've been meaning to get Andy some shoes. Saturday we had a break in the rain, so we took a family excursion to the shoe store and the park.



Kate always gets a kick out of the wobbly mirrors at Payless. Andy thought they were great fun, too.




We did find Andy some shoes, but then he wouldn't walk in them. He was just crawling around on the floor.



After that we headed down to Fort Steilacoom Park, where Andy persisted in not walking.



Doug and Andy on the slide. (It's quite a trick to get oneself into the slide while holding a toddler. Go, Doug!)




Kate atop a climbing rock.




Kate made friends with another little girl that was there and spent a good long time running around with her.



Andy and Dad. Aren't they cute?





Andy kept trying to eat the wood chips. Messy!



He still doesn't have the hang of the shoes. I remember when we got Kate's first shoes, she got the idea right away. It's funny how they have their own little quirks.

Update: Right after posting this I put Andy's shoes on him again, and now he's walking around like a champ. Unfortunately it's raining again, so we won't be going outside.

Monday, January 11, 2010

coming up for air

Yes, I'm still here! I've been immersed in this big scrapping project (which I finally finished--hooray! More on that soon. Tomorrow, probably). I was talking to my mom today and she said a friend asked if I was okay, since I hadn't posted anything for a week.

We got the Christmas tree taken down on January 6th, having stuck it out through the twelve days of Christmas. Kate was briefly distressed but got over it.

Doug went back to school last Monday. He's teaching a class down in Olympia this quarter, which he's never done before. So far so good, though he has run into heavy traffic a few times on the way back.

Kate has been introduced to Shel Silverstein and Calvin and Hobbes. "I'm Being Eaten by a Boa Constrictor" was a big hit. A lot of Calvin and Hobbes is bit too deep for a five-year-old (which is kind of funny, since Calvin's six) but she loves the expressions and sound effects. And the way Bill Watterson draws movement is just amazing. The man has some serious talent. We got the collection a few years ago, and now Kate asks Doug to get out one of the three big volumes and look through it with her at bed time. It's quite hilarious to listen to.

Andy has also decided that books are pretty cool. Unfortunately the way he likes to experience books is to open them up and stand on them.

I ran across this Cafe Press shop today. I am tempted to get the ABD sticker for Doug. Ha.

Saturday, January 02, 2010

Letter Family



Kate drew this for me today--isn't it amazing? She wrote the names all by herself, too. (I asked her if she could draw Andy, too, and she said, "No, there are only three letters!")

Friday, January 01, 2010

Zzzzzzzzz

Thursday, December 31, 2009

2009 in Facebook updates

I found an application on Facebook that'll give you all your status updates for the year, so I copied and saved mine. It's like a snapshot of the whole year. Well, a rather long series of snapshots, I guess. I did trim it down but it's still pretty long. So I won't feel bad if no one actually reads this, but I just felt compelled to post it.

(These should be read with "Helena" at the beginning. If I'm not using that as part of the sentence, I'll usually separate it with dashes.)

January

is wondering whether she should go to church tomorrow or keep the baby home for another week.

is enjoying a raspberry yogurt.

is thankful for afternoon naps and a husband who cooks.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

If you're happy and you know it

Just a bunch of random pictures from before Christmas. (I'm dating this earlier so it'll show up at the end of December.)



Baby Tad was one of Kate's Christmas presents when she was Andy's age. We pulled him out got him some new batteries, and Kate and Andy had some fun playing with him together. One of the songs he sings is "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands." Andy started clapping.



I think this is just so cute.



Opening the advent calendar. (Only $1.00 from Trader Joe's!) Kate enjoyed doing that after lunch every day, and eating the little chocolate candy for dessert.



Andy watches Kate drawing on the back porch.




She drew a castle and a fire breathing dragon, and a knight on a white horse. That's a sky up above, with snow falling.



Making cookies! This Does Not Happen Often, so I thought we should get pictures. Kate was quite intrigued and had to taste all the ingredients.




I had to show her how to lick the beaters, because she'd never done it before. Poor deprived child.



We made up three plates of cookies to take to our neighbors, and none of them were home!



Andy conked out on the bed. We were amused by the way he had his fingers laced together.

Makes sense to me.

Andy had his check-up yesterday. He's 29" tall and weighs 17 pounds, 5 ounces. He got five shots, poor baby, and then came home and slept a loooong time.

Monday night we went out to I Love Bento with the Garys. (We wanted to do something nice for them, after they babysat our car for us.) I brought along some toasted laver seaweed to eat with the meal. Marianne asked about it, and I said, "It's called kim in Korea, and nori in Japan."

So Kate asked, "What is it called in Tacoma?"

Brilliant.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Andy's Tol

After opening presents we had Andy's Tol. This is a Korean custom for a child's first birthday. (Doug doesn't see much point in doing this, since we're not Korean, but I think it's kind of fun.) In case you missed it, here's Kate's Tol.

Here's the table, laid with various items representing different things:



The book was one of Andy's presents that I didn't wrap up but saved out for this, so he hadn't seen it yet.



Andy gets pointed in the right direction...



approaches table...



It looked like he was going to go for the food, but he didn't actually pick it up.



He took off after Kate's dinosaur, so Doug steered him back to the table,



whereupon he immediately picked up a coin and put it in his mouth.



Doug rescued the coin, and Andy moved on and picked up the knife.



And then back to the food!

The first and second items a child chooses are considered significant. I don't think Kate had a second item at all--after picking the food she just climbed up on the table and sat.

Money represents financial aptitude, and choosing the knife is supposed to mean that he'll be a good cook. Perhaps a culinary career?

첫돌축하해요!

Monday, December 28, 2009

Birthday! Birthday!

Our first joint birthday party! I went up to Artco on Saturday and got some balloons--five pink and one blue. We took some pictures with them that night because I wasn't sure if they would last.



(I didn't want to overwhelm this post with balloon pictures, so I just stuck them all together.)

Sunday morning we let Kate pick one present to open before church. She picked the animal coloring book from Barb and Kyle, because she liked the frog wrapping paper.

After church Andy let us know it was time for his nap, so we had a quick lunch and got things ready while waiting for him to wake up.



Scott came over for the festivities, and brought Kate yet another dinosaur.



We decided to go the slab-of-panettone route again. (We're just not cake people, generally.)



We sang Happy Birthday to Kate first.



It took her a few tries to blow out her candles.



And then we sang Happy Birthday to Andy! (That's Scott's hand.) Kate helped him blow out his candle.

I wasn't really happy with these pictures of Andy, and I realized that I had forgotten the "baby's first birthday" bib, so I re-staged this part the next day. (Mimi says, "Of course, it's the afterfeast of his birthday, totally acceptable!") I had, conveniently, done laundry early, so his clothes were clean again. The light was a bit different, though!








"Ooh, what's this?"

Andy loved the panettone (both times) and just gobbled it up.



Opening presents!



It's Nessie! (Playmobil seamonster, from my parents.) She was so excited about this.



Andy gets some help with his present.



My sister Barb made this ball. I love the colors. And it jingles! Very cool.




Joint present from my parents.



"It's an Elephant and Piggie book!" (Hooray!)



Happy birthday, kids! It's been quite a year. Here's to many more!