I'm soooo "Audrey Hepburn"

Elaine is just missing the cute "Breakfast at Tiffany's" black dress! She thought my sunglasses were so fun and I had fun taking her picture!

Elaine also has started giggling at the goofy things we do.

Milestone for Elaine!

Elaine has flipped onto her tummy!
I don't think she really meant to. After an hour nap, I found her lying on her tummy and crying. She didn't seem too happy about it.
Nevertheless, another milestone!

On an added note, she also has been working up those neck muscles while on her "scheduled" tummy time. Also, she's been trying to sit up while in her car seat, swing or rocker chair (like she's doing some baby crunches/abs work). Looks like she's gearing up to be on the move!

All I have to say is these baby stages are going by all too quickly!

Life and sibling connections

Shout out to my blog readers in Nevada...this one is for you!

Elaine is smiling more than ever these days. Oddly, she dishes out the best smiles as soon as I lay her down on her changing table. She's really into her mobiles over her crib and the one over her swing. Here in her swing, she's looking at those butterflies flying above her.

On our walks around the neighborhood, the kids love to (literally) stop and smell the roses. Their favorite (and abundantly available in the yard of a vacant home that's been on the market forever) is the dandelion. Natalie loves to pick the bloomed white ones to 'make a wish' and Peter loves to pick any flower to give to me. Here he had rode ahead of us, picked this dandelion he's spotted, rode quickly back to me and said, "Mommy! I picked this one for you!" Yes, I know. Awwwwww.....

Natalie wins the title of my champion napper. I've worried that Natalie will drop her naps ever since Peter gave up all naps a couple months before his 3rd birthday. Well, Natalie has calmed my worries. One day last week, I had the kids downstairs set to watch one show (probably a Dora or Diego show) and prepared Natalie by telling her that after the show was over, it'd be time for her nap. I was upstairs in the kitchen when the show had ended. I finished up the dishes before I went downstairs to bring up Natalie for her nap. When I got there, I only found Peter. A little panic took over me as I asked where Natalie was. Peter said she'd gone upstairs for her nap. The gate was left open, but I wasn't convinced she'd gone up voluntarily. So, back upstairs I went and just as I got to the top of the stairs, I heard the door to the kids' room close shut. I opened the door to find this:

Natalie had quietly walked upstairs by herself, crawled into bed, got under the covers, and started to read a book...basically, put herself down for a nap! OH! I just love this girl!

If anyone wonders how three kids ages 3 and under get along in our house, here are a couple glimpses into our home to give you an idea. As good big brothers do, Peter is always ready to entertain Elaine in her walker. Both Peter and Natalie love having Elaine sitting up in her walker beause she's right at their level and they can interact with her 'one-on-one'. Peter gets Elaine's attention with a little peek-a-boo play.

I love this picture. It looks like the two sisters are already practicing their vogue poses...gotta love it! Always the snuggler, Natalie also enjoys a little snuggle time with Elaine on our bed. Natalie loves to just stare and smile at Elaine, and tell her that she's "so cute".

I'd have to agree!

Things I hear from Peter and Natalie (and Elaine) - part 3

We officially have entered the phase of "why?"
...in stereo nonetheless.
Both Peter and Natalie have been asking, "Why?" every chance they get. As anyone can figure out, it's a never-ending stream of explanations. So we thought. When it came to the point (a very FAR point) where we couldn't answer "why" something was, for fun, we just said "Why not?!" This has come in handy and even has rubbed off onto Natalie, who answered her own "why" question with a "why not!" They think it's as funny as we do.

Elaine sayings:

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaa..." - our little baby girl is starting to speak!

Natalie sayings:

"Mommy, I need water, I'm like a flower" - guess she was really thirsty?

"When I three years old, I gets to go to school like Peter!" - she is sooo ready!

"Mommy! Peter not sharing!" - ah, a little budding tattle teller!

"I'm free to goooo!" - usually after we finish getting her dressed after many attempts to keep her still and in one spot.

"I so crazy!" - no comment

"Nothing!" - her usual response whether you ask "what are you doing?" (when she really is doing something she shouldn't or when she's doing #2 in her diaper) or "what will make you feel better?" (when she gets into her sour moods).

Peter sayings:

Daddy: "Everyone wants 'Mommy', 'Mommy', 'Mommy'. When am I going to be the cool one?"

Peter: "When you turn into Mommy."
I kid you not, this dialogue is verbatim!

"If the ground in McDonalds wasn't so hard, I could tumble" - stems from them taking tumbling classes.

"We can't skidoo because we're not magical" - how sad he's lost the suspension of disbelief, even in Blue's skidoo-ing!

"Mommy! You're getting smaller and smaller every day!" - awwww, my boy sure does know how to make his Mommy feel better about her post-partum weight!

Other things worth mentioning...

...about Elaine:

As introduced on this entry, Elaine has started to become vocal. I'm starting to wake up to her 'talking' to the animals on her mobile rather than her crying. It's really cute!

Elaine has already learned to roll onto her side. I guess she's been able to do this for a couple weeks already, but I failed to mention it here.

Elaine has early signs of being a thumb sucker. I often catch (or hear) her smacking at her hands/fist and finally have seen her singling out her thumb and sucking away! All three of our kids have refused any pacifier. Peter and Natalie never sucked their thumbs, rather they sucked on - really - nothing with their tongues poking in/out of their mouths. Natalie still does this (along with pinching the skin on her neck) when she's getting tired or ready to sleep. I'm interested to see if it disappears or will Elaine be the first and only (well, along with me, when I was younger) thumb sucker!

...about Natalie:

Natalie's own personality is truly coming out. She's become our bright-eyed, free spirited, crazy (by her own admission), sweet little girl. As I often say to Sam, I feel that she might have learned a few things from Uncle Jim during his last visit. She rambles off the silliest things, comes up with some crazy dance moves, and handles discipline somtimes in a slightly comic way. Natalie certainly is not our 'serious' child.

Physically, Natalie has grown up. She's eating at the table without any high chair or booster, drinking out of a cup, and using 'big people' forks and spoons. She's made these changes partly because she is getting bigger but partly because she wants to do "like Peter" is doing. I also noticed she's been walking up the stairs rather than using her hands to help her climb up. These are small and simple changes, but ones that add up to your baby girl growing up to be a big girl.

...about Peter

Peter often has been pretending to fall asleep in the car after a 'long' ride. Although he's pretty good at it, he still needs some work on his acting skills. We can plainly see his eyes fighting to stay closed and his mouth fighting to not burst out with laughter. He even tries to sneak a peek to see if we've been fooled. We usually break his 'method acting' by saying something funny or "I guess Peter can stay in the car while we go inside for a snack!" That 100% snaps him out of it - he would never want to miss out on a snack!

For preschool, Peter had some chocolates he had to sell. Yes, fundraising apparently starts early at Regina! It was hard enough trying to explain to him what fundraising meant let alone explain why he couldn't eat all 30 boxes of chocolates. Finally, I think he got the idea. Well, I can definitely say he got it because the next thing I hear is Peter asking me to get money out of his piggy bank to buy his fundraising chocolates! He chose chocolate covered raisins. Such a resourceful boy!

Peter's first field trip!

Tuesday was a special school day for Peter - it was his first field trip! Regina 3-year old preschoolers were going to Wilson's apple orchard!

It also turned out to be his first time on a school bus, which seemed almost as exciting (if not more) than the field trip itself! What 3-year old really understands what an orchard is anyway?

As one of the parent chaperones, I was assigned Peter and a cute little girl named Carissa. Here are the two of them excited about their first school bus experience.

As soon as we got to the orchard, we got off the bus and hopped aboard the tractor wagon for a ride around the orchard. It was a fun and bumpy ride through apple trees and the creek, which was lots of fun for the kids. My main concern was to make sure the two kids under my supervision stayed on the wagon!

Here are Peter's preschool teachers: Mr. Nick (in black shirt) and Ms. Connie (in the hat).

After the tractor ride, we went inside for a little demonstration on different kinds of apples and how differently they taste. All the kids were paying close attention because she was cutting apple slices for them to sample. Yum! Even us parents got to sample a few slices!

Once our Bear class apple demonstration was over, we played games and sang songs outside while the Bunny room kids got their turn inside. It was a beautiful day and perfect for a little hokey pokey business!

and with that..."That's what it's all about!"

Family fun at Bloomsbury Farm

Sit back, you're in for a long blog entry!

Our discoveries of new parts of Iowa continued on Saturday when we decided last minute to go to this place called Bloomsbury Farm (http://www.bloomsburyfarm.com/). We'd heard of it and knew there were corn mazes (get it - maize?), but never went. It was less than an hour away so what the hay (get it - hay?).

Ok, enough of that. We went venturing towards Atkins, IA, got on some country gravel roads, got to Bloomsbury farm a little past noon and were pleasantly surprised. There are so many great things for kids to do. Peter and Natalie were the perfect age for everything!

We started off with feeding some farm animals. It all sounded pretty easy and innocent, but when it came time for me to show the kids how to feed the goats...well, you can watch for yourself!

Fortunately, my fear did not get passed onto our kids, especially not Natalie. For the girl who often says, "I don't want to", Natalie jumped at the opportunity to feed the goats and LOVED it! She had no fear at all, which scared me a little! Nothing is scarier for a mother to watch her little girl stick out her hands with food towards an animal that's more than 4 times her size, with an eager mouth and teeth of unknown size. The fear that her fingers would get bit by those teeth had crossed my mind. As it turned out the goats were very gentle and kept their teeth to themselves. Natalie loved their ticklish mouths eating from her hands and just kept wanting to feed them.

While Natalie fed the goats, Peter had his own fun at the duck races. He worked really hard and stayed persistent to get that water pumped out to get the ducks going but was having fun! He sounds like his daddy!

Next, we watched cute little pigs in a race then hopped aboard a tractor ride around the corn fields. The kids had lots of fun on the bumpy ride. I would have tried to take some pictures but I felt the need to hold on both Peter and Natalie so they would bump off the ride!

They were cute little piggies!

She seems so tiny next to this tractor!

Our 'chariot' awaits! This is so "Iowa" to me. I love it!

After the tractor ride around and through the fields, we discovered the Corn Box. It was kind of like a giant sandbox except it had corn kernels instead of sand. This stop was a huge hit for both the kids. Peter jumped right in and was having the time of his life. Natalie started off with her usual "I don't want to!" and was having a hard time moving around as she sunk into the corn like it was quicksand. With a little help, she ended up having a blast, too. I'm guilty of hopping in myself just because I needed to know what it felt like to stand in about 2 feet of corn kernels. It felt cool and funny. Every Iowan should have a corn box in their backyard!

Bed of corn is fun to roll in.

Corn also makes a cool background for pictures!

And corn is apparently fun to throw (see Peter) and gets stuck in your toes (see Nata)!

Ain't it the truth?

Next, the kids enjoyed going down this huge slide made of out of big industrial piping of some sort. Peter went down with no hesitation (what a big boy he's become). Natalie had a little hesitation and, again, said "I don't want to". With a little help from Daddy she made it down the slide and, again, loved it.

Then we headed over to the giant "pillow" bouncy. It was so big - the picture below only shows about 1/4 of the actual size of this thing. Yet another hit with the kids. They looked so funny running across it, like trapeze artists walking across the net. Sam discovered another funny thing, especially with Natalie. If he bounced just a little on one end while she was on the other, he could make her airborne. Although it was hilarous to see, I was also VERY relieved they were the only kids on it at the time. She could have been catapulted into the corn fields!

Natalie got some air in her hair!



Right next to the pillow was the kids tractor ride.

Peter chose to be the caboose!


Spending most of the time asleep in the baby Bjorn, Elaine woke up long enough to get a picture with her 'new scarecrow family'.

Next was some big boy fun for Sam. He just couldn't resist being a little boy again and taking a this dirt bike/go cart for a spin. He had a lot of fun and surely would have gone around many more times if I wasn't having a hard time keeping Peter off the track.

Peter SO WANTED to be out there with Daddy but his legs weren't long enough. More than two days later, Peter still talks about how he is sad that he "couldn't ride the 7-year old bike". I had no idea what he was talking about until I looked at this picture that I realized he was on the #7 cart!

We FINALLY made it to the big event - the corn maze. I must say, we were pretty brave to go into a maze made in 9-ft tall corn fields with 3 youngs kids. Could you imagine the panic attack if we lost one? Luckily, we stayed together through the course,...

found a family photo op,...

even had Peter be "the leader" with the map in hand,...

and made it out again!

Before we left, Peter took his last chance to feed some goats. He was a bit more timid about it than Natalie, but he enjoyed it just the same.

I'm such a sucker for these cut outs for photos - it must the be Asian in me. I, as our main photographer, never got one myself as the day had gotten late and the kids were losing steam. Sam did ham it up for this last one, which I appreciated!

Just shows you how much we ALL had a great time!

University of Iowa homecoming 2008

We had a great weekend and it all started with a little school spirit - Iowa homecoming festivities on Friday evening. We started with a BBQ sponsored by the Tippie College of Business. It was a lot of fun with good food and fun activities for the kids!

Natalie and I are sporting our school colors and new Hawkeye tatoos. Go Hawks!

Even Elaine got her very own name tag that was about the size of her face!

Peter and Daddy enjoyed their hot dogs, too. It doesn't show in the picture, but Peter did have a good time!

After everyone got full on food, we moved onto the kids games they had set up. Most kids were interested in the plethora of prizes, such as beads or plastic little toys. Peter, however, took a liking to the Plinko game and kept playing it over and over again, forgoing the prize in the end. Luckily, there weren't many other kids at the time waiting their turn at the Plinko game.

Natalie enjoyed the games too and was a little more interested in the prizes. Here she's chosen a frisbee, which she later tried to make it spin on the floor. I guess kids will find creative ways to play with toys they don't understand how they work.

We headed to the parade, which conveniently had its route turn right at the business school's corner. We met up with our neighbors and enjoyed the parade - all 90 minutes of it.

As Dora the Explorer reviews in her shows, Natalie's favorite part was the music, Peter's favorite part was the lollipops, Sam's (and my) favorite part was the marching bands, and our neighbor Donna's favorite part was that there was a bunch of kids and me in front of the crowd begging for the candy from the floats. In my defense, I was doing it for our children who so desperately wanted lollipops! *sighs* The things a mother will do for her children!

The night ended with some glow necklaces/sticks fun, which were some of the prizes we came home with from the business school kids games. They were a hit in the car on our way home! They pretended they were fishing poles and caught imaginery fish in the back of our Odyssey. *sighs again* The joys of children's imagination!